What Could Have Been
by Untraveled
Summary: on the run after a mission gone wrong overworked Rebel Fulcrum and a small team of rebels crashland on a swampy graveyard of Clone War battleships. Just when this day couldn't seem to get any worse the former Jedi comes face-to-mask with a terrifying creature of twisted flesh, metal, and barely controlled rage. Ahsoka knew she shouldn't have gotten out of bed that morning.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Untraveled here!

So confession time. I know I got a few projects I'm supposed to be working on but this is one that has stuck with me for a while. It's a bit of a guilty pleasure for me since I _COULD _ be getting my other works done… but you know what? Fuck it.

This is an AU of an AU of an idea that I can't seem to find bloody ANYWHERE on the internet or other dark dusty corners of humanity's imagination, so I decided to write one myself.

Just bare with me for a second and let this image sink in:

Grey Jedi Wasteland Darth Vader.

There. I said it. It's out there. Sounds cool right? Well if you're still on the fence then perhaps you should dive a little deeper and see for yourself.

(Pay attention to the smaller details in the story and you may just find where this AU of an AU came from.)

What Could Have Been

The swamp wastes were a harsh, poisonous place, crashed warships of a bygone galactic war turned what was once a luscious if filthy haven of odd fauna, flora, and any other swamp thing that drudges in between into a murky hellscape where only the desperate and foolish tread.

One such fool dared. A hunched figure atop an aged bipedal walker cowled in a muddied patchwork cloak ripped from a dozen canvas scraps and sewn back together. The thwack-hiss of the walker's pumping legs rippled off of dying twisted trees and echoing through the desolate landscape with a lonely rhythm. A deep mechanical rasp added to the chorus, a harsh rattling breathing from the walker's cloaked rider. Twin tubes swayed from beneath the rider's tattered cloak where they curled from a repurposed respirator hanging from the rider's chest to his hidden face.

Dappled sunlight filtered sparingly through the thinning canopy of dying trees, turning the rider's world into a maze of light and dark. A patch of sunlight rolled over the rider's mechanical mount- a Fallen Republic AT-RT scout walker- illuminating the faded red GAR insignia emblazoned on the scratched durasteel armor plate right above where its nose turret hung.

A collection of packs and small crates were strapped together and tied to the walker's under-carriage between its legs. The AT-RT was clearly not designed to carry cargo but its rider made due by keeping the weight at its center of gravity, though it did sway a bit more than was probably comfortable.

The odd vehicle and its odder rider stalked across the toxic quagmire, at times passing carcasses of massive Fallen Republic Venator Star Destroyers or CIS Dreadnoughts protruding from the murky depths of the devestated landscape. Massive miles-wide swaths of savaged moors and slagged forests still scarred the planet, the aftermath of the Seperatist orbital bombardment half a decade earlier that rendered much of the world near uninhabitable.

Despite the foul waters, deadly terrain, and hostile creatures turned feral from their ruined ecosystem faint pin-points of life and civilization still stubbornly dotted the land. Tiny lights flickered in the corpses of CIS Providence Dreadnoughts, small clusters of hovels built onto the flat arrow shaped hulls of half-sunken Acclimator frigates, and entire ramshakle communities emerged defiantly from the sprawling bodies of Venator Star Destroyers.

The rider passed them all, though he did wave back to gang of children tumbling about the outskirts of a marketplace nearly spilling from the open hangar of a Venator half-swallowed by the swamp. Lights inside the cramped chaotic market sputtered to life as the sun dipped beyond the horizon. The rider's respirator sucked in a deep rasping breath and exhaled a static throaty sigh as he took a moment to soak in the bleeding orange and pinks of a summer sunset.

A shudder rushed through the rider, causing the walker to stutter to a stop, its rider's shoulders seized and he ducked his hooded head in reflex. Half a second after a faint far off alarm echoed eerily from the Venator and all lights in the marketplace went dark, the hangar doors ground closed, cutting off the echoing alarm.

Two, three rasping breaths later an incredible clap of thunder rippled through the air and against the waning sunset a small, clumsy starfreighter tore out of hyperspace splitting apart a cloud on its violent entry. The old clumsy vessel's plating instantly caught alight from the air friction as it tumbled out of the sky trailing behind a distressingly large plume of smoke from its portside engines.

Though he couldn't see through the sun's dying rays the rider heard the reluctant cranking of one of the downed Venator's dual turbolaser turrets spinning around skyward to meet the threat. Another explosion of displaced air heralded a second ship dropping out of hyperspace in atmo, this time accompanied by the shrill howl of Imperial ion engines. A sleek black blade swept from behind the starfreighter with all the grace of a hawk bearing down on its plump and helpless prey, firing hot green lasers into the freighter's hull.

A pulse of brilliant blue light lit up the evening night and the sound of the Fallen Venator's main turret shook the ground and tore off the would-be hawk's black wing, sending the starcraft spiraling to the swamp below, its engines letting out a mournful screech. The turret turned to the starfreighter but it seemed the doomed craft didn't need any help as its damaged engines detonated, tearing the freighter apart, eviscerating its cabin and cargo bay across the swamp below.

The Rider watched in complete silence, holding still as a statue with the sound of the Venator's discharge still ringing in his ears and echoing across the murky battleship graveyard. He only moved when the venator opened its hangar again and a small squad of salvaged speeder-bikes zipped out of the ship's hull to investigate the crash sites.

The rider wheeled his AT-RT around to continue his trek through the swamps into the night but something stopped him, an odd almost nostalgic feeling, a prodding from the Force urging him on, tugging softly on the hem of his cloak away from his destination- right towards the crashed freighter.

The rider scoffed. Whatever it was must have a connection to his past for the nostalgia to reverberate so strongly in the Force, and whatever it was could stay in the past. Everyone that he had loved in the past was long dead so he knew whatever was on that freighter someone else could have, he had more important matters waiting for him. So the rider shrugged off the nostalgia and continued his march home… for about three steps.

He let out a deep raspy groan of annoyance when the Force just prodded him harder, but there was no nostalgia tinting this disturbance in the Force. It was a dark, twisted ugly thing with a warped kind of agony and hate he had only seen in himself, and this time it came from the downed imperial ship.

the rider growled, a deep primal sound that sputtered and hissed through his vocabulator. The air trembled at his foul turn of mood, the planet itself flinching away from the creature's Force presence. The rider rode his anger and irritation and channeled it, wreathing it away into his Force presence. Then with no small amount of reluctance the rider aimed towards the black imperial crash site and gunned the throttle, his mount's sprinting limbs tearing up mud and loam in its wake.

He had a bad feeling that it was going to be a long night.

Ahsoka was having a very bad day.

She had just dragged her exhausted behind into her tiny hovel on Corellia after a disastrous rebel mission spying on an imperial slave market when Senator Organa pinged her on her emergency channel. The former Jedi- turned rebel agent knew that her work was important, vital even, but what she wouldn't do for just a single good night's rest, even with the nightmares that plagued her in her dreams.

Still against her better judgement she crawled out of bed and picked up the call and managed to snatch a quick power-nap on the monorail to meet the team she would be working with it break into the Imperial water-docks in Coronet City. the Coronet water-docks housed a number of Victory-I Star Destroyers from the local garrison that were currently undergoing renovations and refits.

It was supposed to be a quick get in swipe a few wayward Imperial blueprints onto a holodisk and get out. Ahsoka knew she wasn't at the top of her game, she was bone-weary and drained, physically, emotionally, and mentally. She shouldn't have accepted the mission, no matter how simple it seemed, even if she were the closest "Heavy" asset the rebels had. She should have told Bail no.

They got in just fine and managed to steal the blueprints easily enough, but somewhere between exiting the data center and making their escape something tipped off the Imp Stormtrooper guards but had she been more awake she would have noticed the danger sooner. The bucketheads ambushed them as soon as they stepped out into the open, E-11's cutting down two of the rebels before Ahsoka and the others had a chance to run. Their splicer took a bolt to the back of the head as the survivors slipped away into the sewer systems running below much of the city and bright red blood seeped between the hand Ahsoka pressed against the hole in her side.

Much of the chase was a blur of dark shit stained pipes, confused shouting, and screams but somehow (more due to luck then design Ahsoka admits) they came up from the sewers onto a secluded wing of the Coronet Spaceport and hotwired the nearest longer ranged vessel they saw, some old Star freighter hailing from way before Ahsoka's time. She bet her Master (Former- she had to remind herself- Former Master) could have easily identified it.

They managed to clear Space control just fine and made it just outside the Corellian system without incident leaving them thinking they were in the clear long enough to plot their next move. Ahsoka was too tired to have an intelligent conversation and stalked off in search of a medi-pack. The young Togruta woman had just finished dressing the blaster wound in her side and found herself a cozy little nook between two crates to curl up in when she was jolted awake by laser fire smashing into the Freighter's hull.

"Blast! They found us!" she heard the navigator curse from the scanner of their recently "liberated" cargo freighter.

"How?!" She heard another crewmember cry. "I thought we made a clean getaway!"

The iconic and all-too-familiar screech of TIE ion engines slagged that assumption into space junk. Shrieking barks of cannon fire were quickly followed by the cargo ship lurching starboard, throwing some of the unprepared crew into walls and consoles. Alarms wailed as the ship's computer spat out damage reports as more TIE laser fire slammed into the vessel broadside.

Ahsoka scrambled out of her hidey-hole and threw herself into the pilot's chair, sucking in an agonized gasp of pain when her bouncing around agitated her wound. Blinking away silent tears of pain and opting to ignore the shrilling ringing in her montrals Ahsoka turned her focus on flying and trying not to get spaced by a laser bolt through the viewport.

"Piecemeal! Get on that kriffing turret and get them off us!" Ahsoka snarled over the blaring alarms, her frowning lips peeled back to reveal sharp predatory canines in an odd mix of a savage smile and a pained grimace.

"You got it Commander!" The former clone trooper was one of the few that knew the stoic rebel agent before she assumed her role in the Rebel Alliance and disliked her codename on principle, citing that its edgy enough to cut through even General Skywalker's ego.

"We ain't in the army no more you smartass!" Ahsoka retorted, uncomfortable with a reminder of her old rank and the Master and friend she had lost. The ex-soldier laughed and clomped away on his prosthetic leg to man the turret as Ahsoka added, "And for the love of Palpatine's saggy backside someone shut off that blasted alarm!"

She didn't see who it was but the flashing red lights did wink out a few seconds later and the alarms squawled into blessed silence, though that was immediately broken by the defense turret's thunderous retort to the TIE's assault.

"Fulcrum, we got a problem." The blue skinned chagrian female manning the scanner reported.

"We have enough problems," Ahsoka quipped back, channeling a little of her former Master. "Whatever it is can pick a number and get in line."

"Well this one just hopped to the front. Those TIE's came from a Carrack corvette, and it's gaining fast!"

Ahsoka went to reply but choked and threw the freighter hard to port pulling the unwieldy ship nearly vertical, yanking several crewmembers out of their chairs until inertia caught up with them. A wing of suicidal TIE's screamed by, Ahsoka's violent maneuver dodging a flurry of laser bolts they would have otherwise eaten straight through the pilot's viewport. Piecemeal's replying laser fire thumped through the cabin in short accurate bursts. Ashoka glanced at the tiny scanner on her pilot's console and saw two of the four TIE contacts wink out with no small amount of satisfaction.

"Where are we on that Hyperdrive?"

"We're not going anywhere fast! This Navi-computer is bloody ancient!" Came the heated reply from their Toydarian engineer. "The processor is an IVN-341. The company that made them went outta business fifty years ago, like why-"

"I don't care about the stupid processer, just get us outta here!"

"Inputting coordinates and mapping a course takes time! There ain't nuthin' I ca- Wait, there's an old set of coordinates saved in these memory banks." Force save her sanity, because there is no telling what'll happen to the chubby floating grub-face when Ahsoka gets her hands on him.

"Well?! Load the blasted coordinates and get us out of here!"

"B-but these coordinates are unmarked! I ain't got a clue where these'll spit us out at-"

"JUST FUCKING DO IT!"

"Alright, alright. Geez, ya don't hafta bite my face off about it."

Any further conversation (if yelling at a clueless toydarian counts as conversation) was cut off when the starfreighter lurched from another nasty impact that sent sparks cascading across the cabin's console controls. Damage reports filtered in onto the pilot HUD. they lost portside auxiliary engines 4-6 along with a few of the power converters.

"What was that?! I didn't see anything on the scanners!" the Sagrian woman on the Scanner cried.

Ahsoka bit back her snippy retort and focused on the empty black void outside. It was the only reason why she noticed a few of the stars flicker in and out. That was odd, it's almost as if something passed in front of the tiny twinkling lights, but the only blips on scanners were the TIE's and the Carrack behind them.

She saw it again, a few stars blinking out with the black spot void of stars growing larger-

"Ship in front of us!" Ahsoka cried just as the sleek black stealth ship lit up the black with green laser fire. Ahsoka pitched the Freighter to the left and managed to only take a few of the mystery assailant's lasers to the starboard bow sinking the Freighter's shields into the red zone. Piecemeal's reflexes were as sharp as ever, even without a scanner signature and with only a black outline against a night sky the clone managed to land a few shots on the ship. The crimson plasma splashed harmlessly against the black ship's shields lighting up some of its outlines and when Ashoka saw exactly what was attacking us her blood ran cold.

"Hit the hyperdrive now!" she cried, hysteria clawing its way into her voice as the _Sith Inquisitor _bore down on them..

"-But the coordinates-"

"NOW GODDAMMIT NOW!"

The toydarian finally _finally _got the hint and slapped the coordinates in and punched the hyperdrive sequence. Ahsoka felt her heart leap into her throat when nothing happened, then with a cough and a sputter the freighter lurched into hyperspace leaving the Site Interceptor firing into empty space. Ahsoka nearly sobbed in relief, the blue skinned Sagrian Woman behind her actually did. Ahsoka had an image to uphold though, so she swallowed thickly and turned back to the Toydarian engineer.

"Any idea where those coordinates might throw us out?"

"I would be able ta tell ya if you had just let me-" The Toydarian glanced up and saw Fulcrum's angry expression and cut himself off. "I meant so say, I dunno. Lookin' at the numbers they seem to take into account for planetary spin and gravitational pull, so a low orbital drop point?"

"Well an old freighter like this hidden away in the back end of an imperial hangar wouldn't seem to be used in any official capacity. So a smuggling vessel maybe?"

A chirp from her HUD pulled Ahsoka's attention. She flipped on the scanner's notification. "Fuck."

The Sith Inquisitor karking _followed _ them.

"Those Imps are still on our tails! Get ready!" Ahsoka snapped. The poor Sagrian woman let out a weary whimper that Ahsoka full-heartedly related with.

"We're dropping out of hyperspace in ten seconds!" The engineer reported.

Those ten seconds passed way too quickly and they dropped out of hyperspace-

-already inside atmo and going entirely too fast towards the rapidly growing swamp in the viewport.

"Kriffing hell!" Ahsoka yanked back as far as the controls would go and for a moment she thought they could possibly make it out alive. Then the Sith Intercepter's cannons tore apart their already damaged engines.

Another blast ripped through the air behind them and the Sith Interceptor vanished from behind them, its wing blown off and the ship careening towards the ground, but it was too late.

The Alarms managed to squawk a single time for the computer died and the engines exploded and the hull split. The roar of escaping air drowned out Ahsoka's screams as the cabin was ripped apart. She clung to her seat and watched helplessly as the Sagrian woman was sucked out of her seat into the sky and the toydarian engineer was shorn in half by flaming shrapnel.

The spinning swamp below rose up to meet the crumbling cabin and the former jedi's inaudible wail was cut off with a sudden and violent crunch.

Ahsoka knew she shouldn't have gotten out of bed that day.


	2. Episode 2 Where Death Trembles

Episode 2

Where Death Trembles

The nocturnal swamps of the wastes are often filled with a constant rattle, and call of creatures that dwell in the murky, poisonous waters, so guttural demonic radio static scratching the air stands out like a sore thumb-

-or perhaps more like a crashed imperial starship sticking up from the mire.

The only source of light were the red interior emergency lights that spilled down the lowered ramp, illuminating the outlines of two figures clad in obsidian black armor that roamed the crash site. The troopers' visors burned an eerie crimson in the darkness, a side effect from their helmet's integrated thermal vision. On the outskirts of the clearing the wreckage of several scavenged speeder bikes fizzled and popped from where they laid half-submerged in the mud, the corpses of their riders splayed out around their vehicles, limbs crooked and bodies arched in rictus.

A noise that sounded like the hiss-thwack of a distant AT-ST rippled from the depths of the shadowed swamp and both imperial troopers spun around in perfect sync, their E-11D blaster carbines shouldered and trained in separate sectors of fire.

Another hiss-thwack, another step from a war machine that wasn't supposed to be here on a swamp planet with no imperial presence.

One of the troopers turned to the other, deep demonic radio static growling out in a garbled mess from his helmet. The other responded with scrambled hellish hiss and advanced towards the mechanical foot-steps and vanished from sight, black armor melting into the night.

Suddenly the footsteps stopped and the growls, croaks, and calls of the swamps fell silent all at once. The quiet that followed was suffocating and tense, not a creature or shadow so much as twitched. Even the Imperial Death Trooper stood frozen in place, the dim red light from the downed ship cast eerie shapes across his obsidian armor as he waited for hell to break loose.

It never did.

The second Death Trooper returned, visor glowing an angry crimson. The first relaxed his shoulders and spoke, scrambled radio chatter scraping the air. the returning trooper didn't answer and stumbled forward, limbs swaying unnaturally by his sides.

The first Death Trooper raised his carbine and barked some garbled order. He never got the chance to fire when the limp Death Trooper flew across the clearing and slammed into the remaining Trooper, his blaster carbine firing uselessly into the mud.

The Death Trooper shoved the corpse off of him and sloshed up from the mud to his feet, blindly firing a spread of lasers into the dark. The trooper's breathing came up fast and labored, thermal visor sweeping back and forth but all he saw was the cold, dark outlines of trees and foliage.

Then he heard it, a harsh mechanical rasping not unlike the Death Trooper's own scrambled vocabulator. The Death Trooper whirled around and found a towering shadow looming in the crimson light pooling from the crashed Imperial ship.

**"You are a long way from home, Imperial."** The Rider spoke softly, yet his gravelly artificial voice boomed unnaturally loud with an unnerving presence laced with cold, detached contempt. **"What brought you all the way out here I wonder?" **The cloaked creature chuckled, and the sound sent shivers down the Death Trooper's spine. **"Perhaps your Emperor is not as in control as he pretends to be…"**

The words barely left the Rider's mouth when the trooper discharged his rifle, but instead of striking its target the crimson bolt froze in mid-air hissing and sputtering scant inches from the Rider's exposed back. The Death Trooper too went rigid, shimmering pulses of Force energy so potent they distorted the air around them.

"Hey! What's going on out there?" An imperial pilot clambered out of the ship's interior, an E-11 blaster in hand. The black clad pilot jerked to a stop just inches away from the cloaked Rider and raised his blaster. "Wha-?!"

The Rider stepped aside and released the frozen blaster bolt still bucking in mid-air. The bolt carved a hole through the Pilot's right eye socket and blasted a fist sized cavity out the back of the pilot's head.

The Rider regarded the new corpse as it slumped onto the boarding ramp with mild irritation then he turned to the last Death Trooper. A mangled Mechno-hand slid from beneath the ragged and filthy patchwork cloak and the helpless Death Trooper lurched through the air towards the shrouded monster.

Exposed mechanical fingers clamped down around the Death Trooper's faceplate and squeezed. The plastoid alloy buckled beneath the Rider's unnatural strength and the trooper's garbled screech of agony unscrambled into a normal human scream as the helmet's visor cracked and the helmet's vocabulator fizzled out. The Rider relaxed his crushing grip before crushing the trooper's skull then he lifted the helpless imperial until they were face-to-face, the trooper's legs dangling several inches off the ground.

**"You will tell me why you have intruded into my home." **The Rider growled.

"I will tell you _nothing_. Waster Scum!" The Death Trooper spat.

**"Who said I wanted you to speak?" **The Rider asked. **"When I can rip it from your skull instead?"**

An overwhelming Force presence unlike anything the Death Trooper had ever felt bore down onto his mind, Even the Sith inquisitors' presence paled in comparison, laughably so as his mental resistances cracked like an eggshell and all conscious thought was shattered into uncomprehending agony as the Rider ripped his mind apart.


	3. Episode 3: And Monsters Speak

**And Monsters Speak**

"Just a quick retrieval mission he said. It'll be easy he said. Hardly any real risk he said." Ahsoka grumbled, her right montral throbbing where she had banged it against her seat upon impact.

Ahsoka gasped in pain, a scratched orange hand flying around to press against the blaster wound in her side. "Last bloody time I ever take a politician at his word. By the Huntress I'm tired…"

It was her seat's restraints that had saved her. The only wounds she had to show for her crash landing were a few additional scrapes, and bruises. A sharp pain searing through her right montral making Ahsoka reconsider. Delicately she felt around her head horn and felt the raised cracked ridges that spiderwebbed across the bone and flared out across her right brow. It was an old wound, a memento from her first Master, before Master Kenobi and Master Skywalker. She hoped the scarred bone wasn't rebroken when she struck her head.

By some minor miracle when the freighter had ripped apart just above the trees her cockpit remained mostly in one piece when it plowed through the gnarled swamp flora and ending its violent journey half-sunken in a watery quagmire.

"Not the worst landing I've had." She admitted out loud. "Though it could've gone better…"

Her voice sounded too loud in the suddenly suffocating silence. The swamps were filled with a deathly sort of quiet Ahsoka had only experienced in ancient temples-

-And tombs.

After being crammed with the other rebels in a fleeing starship and enduring the constant ambient racket of living in a city the lack of noise was unnerving. Now there was only the hiss of water evaporating against the cockpit's wrecked heat-shield, the creak of her leather jacket as she shifted in her seat, and the sounds of her own ragged breathing.

It seemed whatever skugg-hole she had crashed in was nearing the end of its rotation, Judging from the darkening sky from her tilted view of the forest and sky. The last vestiges of sunlight were fading fast, darkening the destroyed cockpit and her already dour mood.

Everything hurt and moving- or doing much of anything really- was the last thing Ahsoka wanted to do right now but staying here wouldn't make her feel better. She'd been shot, blown out of the sky, and rattled around like a hard gumball between someone's teeth, and she hadn't slept in nearly two rotations.

She can chalk this up as one of the worst days she's had in a while, though the day Master Kenobi informed her that Anakin had died still took the prize for first place, with Order 66 being a close second.

An involuntary shudder coursed through her bruised body just from remembering the sensation of her entire world being pulled from out under her from Kenobi's stricken expression. She swallowed the thick weight in her throat and shook herself.

_Nope, Nope, Nope. Not going to open that particular can of worms._

The cockpit was pitched nose-first into the murky quagmire, leaving her suspended by the restraints holding her against her seat. She patted herself down for any injuries that would impede her movement and checked a pouch on her utility belt that held the cause of all this madness, the Imperial Star Destroyer plans.

She breathed a sigh of relief when her fingers brushed the holodisk. Perhaps this skugg-show of a mission could be salvaged after all. Now all she had to do was get out of this stupid seat.

Her tired fingers fumbled entirely too long with the clasp that was pressing uncomfortably underneath her breasts, then after fighting with the stubborn latch the harness came loose and she just barely caught herself from slipping from the straps and shishkabobbing herself on the shattered transparisteel shards below.

Climbing out of the suspended pilot seat was problematic, muddy water had leaked in through the shattered windshield obscuring any debris and sharp nasty waiting for a clumsy Togruta to step on it. Ahsoka held the straps by her arms and levered her toes gingerly into the water, kicking aside the smashed bits of transparisteel and metal to find a tentative foothold against the partially submerged control panel.

A groan of pain escaped from her lips. Her body protested every tiny movement and fidget, arguing with shearing pain in muscle groups she didn't even know she had, but somehow she slipped free of her harness. She stood hunched with her hands braced against the roof as she inspected the windshield and the quagmire seeping in through the shattered opening.

Ahsoka frowned. The smashed windshield looked like it had a hole big enough for her to slip through, but she'd have to shimmy through on her belly and crawl through the mud the ship was stuck in.

She so did not want to get all wet and slimy. This was her good work outfit! So what if there's a little blood soaked into most of her white tank top? It'll wash out, eventually. But swamp ooze doesn't care.

Ahsoka glanced back at the rear of her half of the wrecked ship hoping against hope that she could save herself from a slimy swim but all she saw was twisted metal and wires. With a heavy sigh she turned back to the windshield and got down on all fours, dipping her chest into the murky water in the process.

_Guess I have a brown, well everything now. Ugh, I hate mud._

She got through the windshield with little difficulty, though a few sharp edges of transparisteel did bite a little at the flare of her hips and snag at her utility belt.

_I remember when I used to be flat enough to crawl around air ducts. Just when did my butt get so big?_

Her thoughts were interrupted when instead of solid durasteel her palm met soft muck and she sank face first into the water with an indignant yelp. She thrashed about trying to right herself but only succeeded in slipping off the rest of the way. Went she finally got the right way up and popped her head above the water a disgruntled grimace stretched across her face. She was in shoulder deep standing straight up and knee deep in mud.

"Great, now it's in my boots." She groaned, spitting and snorting out a nose full of swamp water. "Yuck."

Wading through the soupy deluge was tiring and slow. Every step Ahsoka had to rip her feet from the mud with a sucking squelch that for some reason grated on her nerves and sent shivers up her spine.

Traveling around her half of the downed freighter took far too long for the rebel agent's taste. Their crash landing wasn't exactly subtle and she knew whoever blew the Sith inquisitors out of the sky would also come looking for any survivors from her ship as well. She didn't have much time.

Thankfully it wasn't exactly hard to find a way back into the downed freighter, with there being a giant hole in the back and all. The blast had rent the ship open like a popped sandwich bag, durasteel armor peeled open and ship guts hanging out.

_Like a womprat that got stepped on. _Ahsoka snorted, the taste of slimy swamp water lingering in the back of her throat. _It's looking an awful lot like my hopes of getting out of this mudball of a planet alive, as in squashed and very dead. _

Looking for a safe handhold to pull herself into the interior of the ship was harder than it seemed. Peeled metal had sharp edges and the ship's structure was shattered in places, leaving jagged spikes od durasteel and ensnaring wires jutting out in odd places.

_If I just tap into the force for just a moment I could just jump inside and avoid climbing through all this mess. But… _Just the thought of touching the Force again made her nauseous.

_Maybe it's better if I just give up trying to scavenge anything from the inside. Last thing I need is a cut up leg or getting impaled on a support beam. _Her blaster wound throbbed, supporting her decision to move on, and quickly.

She turned to stomp her way through the water when something solid bumped her side. she grabbed the offending item and pulled it out of the water, then bit back a yelp of alarm.

It was a leg, and it was missing the rest of its owner. She dropped the leg and it vanished back under the water with a splash. Ahsoka rubbed her hand frantically against the fabric of her shirt trying to erase the ghostly sensation of grabbing the limb clinging to her fingers. Then she blinked and stopped rubbing her midriff. It had felt too solid to be flesh-

Ahsoka whipped around, flinging water in her wake as she spotted the ruined but intact remains of the freighter's turret stabbing up into the sky from the top of the crushed hull.

"Piecemeal!" all thoughts of leaving the crash site fled as the Togruta sloshed through the water back towards the totaled starship. "Piecemeal! Are you alive?!"

"-ommander?" A hoarse reply whispered from the turret. "Commander Tano?"

"Oh thank the Huntress." A relief so powerful it hurt pulsed through her body almost causing Ahsoka's knees to buckle. "Are you hurt?"

"Uuuh, well if you see a leg floating around anywhere I'd like it back. Besides that then yeah, I'm peachy."

"Ah poodoo." She forgot where she dropped it. Whatever, she can look for it in a bit. "Nevermind that for now, can you get out?"

The clone's reply was the turret hatch hissing open and toppling off into the water with a huge splash. Ahsoka didn't relax until she saw the one-legged clone clamber to the edge of the hull and waved down to her. He looked no worse for wear then she, mud and slime aside. His jacket and blue worker's trousers were torn and he was sporting a nasty bruise on his cheek but he was (sort of) in one piece.

"You never mentioned you were having a pool party. How come I wasn't invited?" Piecemeal asked sitting down on the edge and hanging his leg off the hull.

"Well you're here now, so why not jump in?" Ahsoka quipped. "Don't worry, the water's as disgusting as it looks."

Piecemeal pulled a face and glared down at the water before shrugging helplessly. "Fine, Fine. I-"

"What?" Ahsoka asked. Piecemeal wasn't looking down at the water anymore but off somewhere over her head out in the dark swampland. Cold pinpricks of dread tickled over her scalp and down her rear lek. Suddenly she was feeling very much like juicy prey being sized up by a drooling predator.

"Hide." Piecemeal limped up to his foot and slid back down inside the turret hatch. "I'll help you up! Hurry!"

Ahsoka brokered no argument and splashed across the water to the hole in the rear of the ship, stumbling and banging her shins against submerged debris.

"Ow. Blasted-! Ugh, I am so done with getting hurt today!" The young woman snarled, fighting the impulse to stomp her foot like a bratty child having a tantrum.

Then she heard it, at the very edge of her hearing. Speeders. And they were getting closer fast. Too fast.

"They're almost here!" Ahsoka reached up for Piecemeal's outstretched hand through a gap in the twisted spines of metal. The clone grunted and strained as he dragged her up inside the wreck, his remaining leg braced against an outcropped plate of durasteel.

Night stole the remnants of useful sunlight forcing Ahsoka to pick her way through the sharp debris stabbing out from the ship's carcass on her dim night vision and instinct. All of a sudden about halfway up she used her free hand to push herself higher and her arm just stopped. She blinked, confused. Climbing for her was child's play. She could climb all day and walk away with a pleasant burn after, so why-?

_It's because I've been pushing myself nonstop for nearly two rotations straight, that's why. _

"C'mon Snips, time to channel a little Skyguy." She growled, more at her trembling arm than herself. "Quit being a little bitch and dig deep."

psyching herself up with her little pep-talk she heaved herself with an animalistic snarl.

After what seemed like a short eternity, even though logically she knew it was only a few seconds, Ahsoka made it inside the wreckage, collapsing next to a gasping Piecemeal on her hands and knees sputtering for air. Her limbs lethargic and heavy from her water soaked clothes and abused body.

She tired to raise her head but she quickly abandoned that bright idea when the world decided to tilt. The effort from climbing having been the straw that broke the bantha's back. She's tired, so, so tired.

_Maybe I should just lay here and let whoever is coming take me… _

"Commander, c'mon." Piecemeal was at her side, a concerned hand on her shoulder. "We gotta get out of sight."

"I-I'm-" She sputtered. Her exhaustion, pain, and adrenaline all mixed up in a nauseous cocktail that pressed urgently against the back of her throat. Her stomach lurched and she gagged. She had found her limit, and at the worst possible time.

Piecemeal paled at the state she was reduced to. She could feel the pity from his gaze and shame burned hot through her leeku and darkened her mud splattered cheeks.

"Okay, I got'cha commander, just lean on me." Piecemeal curled her arm around his shoulders and pulled them up onto their feet and further into the ship's belly. Ahsoka fought to keep her legs underneath her with every step, else both she and her one-legged crutch would spill onto whatever sharp and pointy object was between them and the floor.

All the while the whoop and whine of approaching speeders grew louder and louder in Ahsoka's montral.

Stumbling through the near pitch black darkness the pair fell into more than found an open crate half full of shipping pellets. Not willing to look a gift taun-taun in the mouth they slid into the crate and burrowed into the bottom of the mountain of pellets to hide themselves. There seemed to be a few discarded containers floating around in the crate with them, so Piecemeal threw the containers over them both to disguise their hiding place before sealing the crate as best he could, leaving a crack at the seam to let air through.

Ahsoka shuffled her shoulders and huddled further under the foam packaging until only the barest glint of light shone through the pellets covering her face. She felt Piecemeal's thigh brush her own as he settled on his back on the other end of the crate. That's when she noticed her heavy breathing, so she fought to calm her heaving lungs and swimming vision.

Ahsoka still felt sick when she got her breathing under control but at least she wouldn't give herself away wheezing like General Grievous. Sliding a hand down her hip she tugged her blaster free from its sopping wet holster and leveled the barrel towards the sliver of moonlight cutting into the crate.

The whine of approaching speeders was deafening now, the sound echoing into the wreckage and into their hiding place. Beams of light crossed over the wreckage, briefly cutting through the crate's dark interior before settling back into a tense near-blackness. the growl of speeder engines cut out, replaced by the shouts and barks of their riders.

"You think we'll find anythin' useful on this half?" One reedy voice asked. "Ain't much left 'xcept for a few fleshy bits from onna the crew seared to the blown-up engines at the first site."

"This one's the front o' the ship." A deeper, more commanding voice replied. "Check the cockpit up front. You two circle 'round the hull. See if there's anything worth marking for later."

"For later? Why don't we just rip out what we find now?" A third scavenger scoffed scornfully. "Unless you're scared of the dark?" That remark pulled a few chuckles from the others. Ahsoka counted six at least, though a dozen or more was most likely.

"I ain't afraid of a little dark, I'm afraid of the Lost!" The commanding voice snapped, shutting the rest up promptly. "And you should be too! I ain't about to get eaten just 'cuz you got an ego. Do a quick sweep then mark the shit with a tracking beacon and we'll pick it up in the morn'."

"and what if'n we find survivors?"

"Then wrap 'em up nice and snug and we'll drag 'em back home."

"And if we find a girl?" The reedy one asked in a husky voice that turned Ahsoka's stomach.

"Then we'll sell her off to Jordo. After we have our fun wit' her of course. It's our finder's fee after all."

Ahsoka's finger twisted tighter on the trigger as coarse laughter ripped through the cold humid air. She was sure that she heard a few females laughing as well, and someone yucking that sounded vaguely like a frog choking on a balloon.

The two rebel agents scarcely dared to breathe as they listened to the scavs bumbling around the wreckage, throwing expletives and colorful insults between themselves. More than once a scav had bumped against their crate, ratcheting up Ahsoka's heart into her throat.

_Why don't they kriffing leave already?!_

"Aaaah." Sighed a shadow blocking out some of the sliver of moonlight outside her hiding place. "I wish I woulda gone wit the others to that other ship we brought down. It looked like it mighta had some goodies on it."

"Shut up already! No one cares. Somebody's gotta sort through this garbage anyway, and it just so happened to be you." The stern authoritative voice from before snapped. "one more bitch or moan out of you and you're walking back home. Got it?"

"…yeah. Yeah I got it." The scav sneered, his outline swaying closer to the crate.

When the crate's lid was ripped off Ahsoka just barely stopped herself from pulling the trigger on reflex. A gaunt face of a human swathed in filthy rags and a pair of goggles popped over the side and frowned down at the boxes laying on top of the shipping pellets, completely obvious to the rebels and their pair of blasters hiding scant inches below the surface. The scav snatched a box from the shipping pellets, Ahsoka's breath caught when she felt his fingertips grazing across her sweaty brow.

"Anything good?" one asked.

"Nah, not really. Just some kinda surplus droid socket replacements." The box the scavver had grabbed spun back inside the crate and landed somewhere in the middle of the crate.

"Hey. You hear that?"

The Scavs all instantly fell silent, enabling Ahsoka to hear what they were talking about.

_Speeders. Great, there's more of them. _She internally groaned.

"Hey…. Where we supposed to meet up here?" One asked.

"No?"

Ahsoka felt a chill race through her stomach. Something felt wrong, and whatever it was, it is approaching fast.

The howl of approaching repulsorlift engines was louder now that the crate lid was off.

The crate lid being off was also the reason why Ahsoka could hear the bone-chilling snap-hiss of an igniting lightsaber over the roaring speeders.

"What the-?!" The scav's cry was cut short by a clipped death-screech, then the night erupted into a maelstrom of screams and blaster fire.

"Go! Let's go!" Ahsoka shouted. Terror brought with it a renewed burst of energy that allowed her to fling herself from the crate with Piecemeal hobbling out hot on her tail.

When her wet boots hit the floor she found herself nose-to-nose with the same gaunt scav wearing a stupefied look of confusion on his face.

Almost mechanically Ahsoka pressed the barrel of her blaster into the scav's stomach and with an odd sense of detachment from reality she pulled the trigger. Her blaster discharged with a muffled thump. The scav grunted and looked down at the smoking hole in his chest, his confused expression never changing.

Ahsoka pushed the still standing scav aside, his limbs going rigid as his dying body went into shock and tumbled into a pile of trashed salvage with a loud crash. Ahsoka caught Piecemeal's arm and threw it over her shoulder as they took advantage of the chaos to slip away from the fighting.

The hum and hiss of a spinning lightsaber clashed with the panicked cries and answering thwap of blaster fire grew shrill in Ahsoka's montral, sending spikes of pain skittering through her throbbing head. When they came to the opening in the wreckage Ahsoka traded a resigned look with Piecemeal and together they jumped into the swampy water below.

For once Ahsoka didn't land on anything nasty, though she did get another stinging noseful of swamp slime. Piecemeal landed well too, though his solitary leg sunk deeper into the muck than Ahsoka had, with all his weight being on one foot.

She was reluctant to admit but Ahsoka did panic a little, floundering around in the water as she struggled to yank the amputee from the mud as not even a dozen paces away the swish of a crimson lightsaber cracked down desperate laser fire. Piecemeal finally came free from the mud with a sucking pop and the mismatched pair stumbled and splashed blindly into the trees.

Just inside the tree line Ahsoka let out a moan. her lungs were burning again, and her muscles spasmed in protest as the brief shot of adrenaline petered out. Dragging themselves to an entangled copse of trees a few hundred paces away from the wreckage the two rebels sloshed onto the soggy embankment and collapsed in between the exposed tree roots to hide out and catch their breath.

Ahsoka peeked out over the root she was leaning on, her blue eyes snapping to the crimson blade of light cutting through the dark in a savage dance. Her blood ran cold when a second red blade ignited, then a third.

_Three. Three Inquisitors. Oh Huntress. _

This was not how Ahsoka thought she would go. A lucky blaster shot in the back during a mission or alcohol poisoning after drowning her sorrows alone in her dark tiny apartment maybe. But being torn apart by Jedi Hunters when she could barely muster the strength to move? In her nightmares perhaps, and that is if she's lucky and they kill her. The alternate of being captured was too horrible to fathom.

A pleading scream ripped her from her fear induced stupor. There was no more blaster fire. The Scavvers were dead. Her night vision acclimated enough to the dim light to make out the three 'saber wielders kicking over bodies.

It took her a few moments to realize what they were doing.

_They are checking their faces. _Cold sweat mixed with the wet slime sliding down her back. _They know what we look like. _

"They are not here!" One of the Red-Blades barked, slashing a corpse apart in a fit of rage. "They are not here!"

"Silence yourself Eleven." A cold female Inquisitor hushed. The ice in her voice sent chills down Ahsoka's leeku. "Your tantrums will get us no further to locating our quarry, and First Sister has little patience for worthless distractions."

_First Sister? Eleven? _The Imperial Inquisitorius is considered an urban legend even among the rebel intelligence community. A nightmarish ghost story used more as a cautionary tale for operators on the consequences of drawing attention to themselves. Ahsoka knew better, having seen one such Inquisitor at work early in the days after Order 66.

The female inquisitor turned away from the cowed "Eleven" and addressed the third of their number. "Eighth Brother, thoughts?"

Eighth Brother uncoiled his spindly frame from where he had been crouched studying something he pulled out of the water. "Our prey couldn't have gotten too far, Seventh Sister. Not without this." He said showing Seventh Sister the prosthetic leg in his blue skinned hand.

"Sithspit." Ahsoka cursed.

"Eleventh Brother you and I will take a speeder and search the area." Seventh Sister commanded. "Eight, sift through this mess for tracks. Comm me when you find something. Do not go off on your own. Those plans and the Rebel Agent that carries it are too important to trust you alone to retrieve them. Understood?"

Ahsoka swore she could see the rage rolling off of the thin Eighth Brother as he ground out an affirmative. She and Piecemeal tucked themselves further into the roots as the Seventh Sister and Eleventh Brother mounted their speeders and took off circling around the perimeter and leaving the Eighth Brother alone.

"Commander," Piecemeal pulled her shoulder to get her attention. "We can't stay here. what are we going to do?"

Ahsoka glanced out at the dark desolate swamp behind them. The chirps and calls of animals picked up, filling the deathly silence left behind after the savage and loud battle. The Eighth Sith-spawn was right about one thing. Piecemeal wasn't getting anywhere fast on one leg.

"Those speeders." Ahsoka whispered back, pointing at one of the scavver's bikes still hovering a few inches above the water. "We'll steal one of those speeder bikes and make ourselves scarce."

"You do realize that there is an inquisitor standing there between us and those bikes, right?"

Ahsoka waved away his concern. "Minor details. You sit tight and have your blaster ready. I'll swim over there and get close. When I give the signal start shooting."

"You got it. Be careful Commander."

"When am I not?" Ahsoka flashed him a grin and steeled herself for an unpleasant swim.

"You don't want me to answer that." He chuckled, bracing his blaster on a tree root.

Ahsoka snorted then grimaced as she slid into the slimy water and submerged herself up to the nose, keeping her eyes above the waterline as she stroked in a slow, even pace.

The eighth whatchamacallit was oblivious of the approaching Togruta as she did her best shark impression towards the fleet of scavenged speeder bikes, a pair of white and blue striped montrals cutting through the surface of the water.

While the former jedi was sneaking towards her target the lone inquisitor had tracked the path Ahsoka had taken from the cockpit and vanished into freighter's interior. Ahsoka managed to cross the open expanse and pressed herself against the hull and waited.

Her opportunity came when she heard the Red-Blade splash back into the water, then she waved her hand and gave the signal.

The blaster shot startled even her, and Ahsoka was prepared for it. But somehow, impossibly, the Inquisitor dodged the crimson bolt, the missed shot throwing up water from the impact. The Inquisitor let out a feral scream and ignited his blade in time to bat a follow up shot and leap clear out of the water towards the sniper.

The moment the Inquisitor was airborne Ahsoka surged out of the water herself and scrambled through the submerged wreckage towards the closest speeder bike.

It took entirely too long for her to slog through the water, every step seeming to take an eternity, but she could still hear Piecemeal firing his blaster so it couldn't have taken her too long. By the time she made a grab for a battered Fallen republic BARC Speeder and fumbled atop it her limbs were trembling again, though this time from exhilaration, terror, and a smidgen of hope.

"Fuck yeah!" When she threw her foot down on the ignition and the speeder roared to life she let out a wild whoop and tore through the wreckage and across the open water. The Inquisitor had just enough time to let out a half-gasp of surprise when a BARC Speeder outrigger clipped him on the shoulder, sending the masked Jedi-Hunter skipping across the water in a tangled mess of snarling limbs.

Ahsoka didn't pause to glance at the Sith-spawn turned murderous skipping-stone, easing up on the throttle just enough to catch Piecemeal's outstretched hand as she passed. The clone swung himself in place behind her and threw his fist into the air and letting out a whoop of his own.

"Wahoo! Just like old times. Eh Commander?"

The ghostly weight of a mechno-hand settled on her shoulder, and for a moment Ahsoka swore she saw honey-brown locks and a fearless grin beside her. Shaking herself of the image of her former Master Ahsoka focused on not crashing into a tree and gunned the throttle.

"Yeah. Just like old times."

He couldn't believe it.

[-Bring me her head and the plans. Do not fail me, or your fate will be… most unfortunate.]

The ominous wizen rasp clipped to a stop and the Rider rewound the Mission Recording again, the flickering blue image of a Togruta sputtered in reverse as the Holo-Recording played back to the beginning.

He hit play and Darth Sidious's voice grated the air as he spat his kill order.

The Rider wasn't paying attention to his hated enemy. His entire focus was on the still shot of a crouched Togruta in mid-stride, a defiant scowl on her matured face.

After finding the holoprojector in the downed Imperial ship's cockpit he must have played the recording ten times already, still reeling from shock.

She's dead. Or at least so he thought. She had vanished from the Force years ago, just like everyone else he had known before, barring his wife.

The agony of when their Force-Bond had been severed still whispered in his frequent nightmare-filled sleepless nights. It was still there in the corner of the muted gray light that was his Force Presence, a raw open wound he refuses to close, choosing to bear it as a constant reminder of who he had loved and lost, much like his bond with his own Master.

He rewound the recording again, studying the familiar stranger before him.

She had grown, no _blossomed _into a beautiful woman. He still remembered the sassy toothpick he had been saddled with during the second siege of Naboo. Though she was technically assigned as Obi-Wan's Padawan after the siege was ended by then she and him had already formed a Force-Bond.

In an odd ironic twist of fate Ahsoka Tano gained two Masters that day.

Then, Order 66. The fall of the Jedi Order. And he was alone.

Not as alone as he thought, apparently, though he was struggled to come to terms with the young woman he found in place of the fiery girl he had known.

The Rider trailed the Togruta's muscled curves. Even obscured by her baggy pants and long sleeved pilot jacket she could do little to hide her womanly figure, filled out with consistent training and tempered by combat. A pair of matured montral swept up in graceful arcs above her white traced brow and an attractive face framed by ringed Leeku dangling over a modest chest and just short of her hips. Through her scowl he recognized handsome sloped cheeks, strong chin, and full lips. A jarring departure from the girl he had befriended and helped train all those years ago.

He also noticed her scars. Her left montral still sporting the healed cracks from an old injury she suffered during the Nabooian Siege. It was the unfamiliar ones he was bothered by. A crowned scar from a blaster wound peaking from the nape of her neck, a faint track of hardened flesh across her hand and a faded nick along her jaw from a blade.

A particularly painful metallic rasp from his respirator jolted the Rider from his brooding and he realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled slowly and his respirator equalized, no longer thinking he was dying. Sidious' raspy voice snapped back into focus, and with it so did the reason for his anger.

[ -1st Sister, take with you four of your number. Hunt down this traitorous dog, bring me her head and the plans. Do not fail me, or your fate will be… most unfortunate.]

As the Rider's emotions rose several pieces of discarded debris on the floor rattled and rose into the air with them. With a mechanical snarl the Rider rose from his seat and swept from the cabin stepped over the corpse of the slain imperial pilot and Death Troopers and spun around to face the downed Interceptor. Raising a mechno-hand the Rider sharpened his will and opened his hand.

The Force answered the Masked Rider's surging rage and the downed ship was slowly ripped from the sucking mud and trembled in the Rider's grasp. The screech of metal tearing scratched the night air as the Rider clenched his fist, crushing the sleek Inquisitor Interceptor into an unrecognizable mass of unless durasteel.

His fury still unsated the Rider took hold with his other hand with a mechanical roar ripped the ship in half, its remnants showering the swamp with shrapnel as the sundered carcass thudded back into the mud and detonated into twin balls of flame.

A/N: For those a bit confused on the canon divergence with Anakin and Ahsoka's first meeting, remember this is an AU of the AU, "Push me away, let me go."

I Hope you Enjoy regardless! and don't forget to comment! I'd love to hear your thoughts!


	4. Episode 4 Waking Nightmare

Episode 4

Waking Nightmare

Fresh air, whispering trees, the distant call of ocean birds and salt on humid wind so thick she could taste it.

She took a deep breath, relishing the rare moment of peace and inhaling the heady aroma of -Blood, blood, fire, burning flesh- worn metal, the tangy hint of sweat, oil, and open sky. His scent.

Even when his handsome face faded little by little in her memory, no matter how hard she tried to hold, she never could forget his scent.

She had read somewhere that if Togrutas found the scent of another member of the opposite sex pleasant it meant they were a desirable mate. Even though he was not a member of her race she found his scent (and the rest of him) very desirable indeed.

Ahsoka had wondered if the same thing worked for humans…

The young Togruta Padawan drew in another long deep breath and let out a languid content sigh, her eyes closed and head tilted back, soaking up the sun like a lounging tooka. This was why when Master Skywalker spoke she nearly jumped out of her skin.

"Beaches are weird."

Coughing to cover how badly he had startled her Ahsoka scrunched her nose in confusion at the -broken, twisted, monstrous- young man sitting off the edge of the Wookie hut next to her.

"What?" She asked, the rounded bubble of a laugh tittering at the edge of her voice, not knowing where his declaration was going but already familiar with her Skyguy's insightful tangents.

She wondered if odd trains of thought was a human thing too.

"Why?" She asked, fighting to keep the fond grin off her face watching his contemplative expression grow serious as he pondered the significance behind his odd statement.

The off pair were sitting on an elevated Wookie hut overlooking the Kachirho beachhead, their legs swinging free to the wind several hundred feet above the ground. Her actual Master Obi-Wan Kenobi and the rest of the 212th couldn't spare the troops to support the 501's Special Operations into the heart of the CIS Kashyyk campaign, but they could spare her.

Ahsoka preferred it this way truthfully. Back when she suffered under Master Krell's tutelage –"I will break you, little kitten"- the boys of the 501st were her family, and since becoming Kenobi's apprentice she had missed them terribly. But she was content knowing that Anakin led them now that Krell is gone. –"No one will ever want you, a worthless little whore!"-

Sometimes though she can't help but wonder what it would have been like if she had become Skywalker's apprentice instead. -…I left him I left him I left him I left him I….-

"Well,"

Ahsoka turned her attention to the older man's face, her traitorous eyes darting between his lips and dexterous fingers as he spoke, hands waving to the shoreline stretching out below them.

"Water, I'm a fan of. We all need it, we all drink it-"

"-but not this water," Ahsoka chirped. "It being an ocean and all."

"Hush," Anakin chided, throwing her a playful smirk. "I'm trying to impart upon you just a fraction of my invaluable wisdom, young one."

"I'm seventeen you senile old man."

"And I'm twenty two." He shot back. Ahsoka guffawed at his offended glare that crumbled away into a -harsh, mechanical rasping- chuckle as he joined in her amusement.

"Anyway, where was I before I was rudely interrupted?"

"Something about water and whining about sand like a little bitch?" Ahsoka drawled, head rolling back lazily to soak up more sun.

A focused Force blast gently thumped the underside of her nose and Ahsoka was powerless to stop the tiny mousy sneeze that followed. She pointed a glare down at her scrunched nose, cerulean eyes crossing hilariously before fixing the culprit beside her with an angry stare. Anakin on the other hand was too busy laughing to care. The twit was on his back holding his aching sides and doing absolutely nothing to hide his mirth.

"Wha-What was that?" He asked breathlessly, between guffaws. "You-you're I didn't know a person can even make a sound like that! That sneeze was adorable!"

"You're a jerk." She huffed, crossing her arms, and doing her best to ignore the funny things his deep rolling -scraping, heaving, artificial- laughter was doing to her insides. "Can you quit laughing and just get on with your lesson O' great and venerable Master Jedi?"

"Right, right." Anakin wheezed, leveling himself off the floor waving off the cranky Togruta girl. He coughed and cleared his throat, though his voice was still cracking a little from his laughter. "So. Beaches-"

"-And water-" Ahsoka supplied.

"-And sand." Anakin's breathless expression darkened into a comically grave scowl -sky blue eyes bleeding Sith gold- that had Ahsoka swallowing a snort. It wasn't a giggle. She did not giggle. Jedi did not giggle. And Anakin is not funny. Really. Honest.

"Sand?" She asked. He nodded solemnly, clearly basking in her attention and amusement.

"Yes." He drew himself up, broad armored shoulders squared and chest out in an overexaggerated imitation of Obi-Wan psyching himself up for a lecture.

"You see my young Padawan, beaches are nature's paradox." He looked like he was having way too much fun playing the part of Master, mechno-hand waving around the air -bare metal claws scraping the wind- as if pointing to an unseen holoprojector displaying some fictional lesson. "Water is wet."

"Really? Wow Master Skywalker I had no idea." Ahsoka drawled, rolling her eyes so hard she almost pulled a muscle.

"Don't make me boop you again." He threatened, poking a mechno finger into her side, aiming for the ticklish spot below her ribs. Ahsoka batted the offending appendage away and put her hands up in defeat. Satisfied in his victory Anakin continued.

"Well, I mean of all two things to find together, water and sand?" He gestured to the pristine white coastline with a torn look of disdain as if the very shore had personally affronted him. "I love water, but sand? Nope. Not for me. Because on a beach, to get to the water you have to walk over all that sand, so by the time you get to the water your covered in the stuff. It's coarse, and rough, irritating and it gets everywhere… but at least you can wash it off. But that's not the worse part!"

"No?" Ahsoka prompted, fighting her smile.

"No." Anakin continued grim shadows etched into the lines around his eye as he imparted his wisdom. "The worst part is when you get out of the water, you gotta walk back over the shore and get covered in sand all over again!"

Ahsoka tittered, purring laughter rumbling from deep in her breast and up her throat. "You- you're hopeless!"

"It's a travesty!"

"The fact that the Hero with No Fear is scared of sand is a travesty."

Anakin chuckled, matching her grin with a lopsided smile - jagged metal teeth stabbing from his grinning maw- . "Well even I have a flaw, as close to perfection as I am." Ahsoka snorted as he added. "Otherwise it wouldn't be fair for the rest of you mere mortals."

"Gee thanks." Ahsoka deadpanned. Anakin chortled and she thumped him in the arm, then the pair lapsed into a comfortable silence.

"You know," Ahsoka began, drawing Anakin's brilliant blue -sick, bloodshot- eyes. "sand I don't mind so much, though I'm not a huge fan of water."

Anakin quirked a brow. "Yesterday weren't you telling me about when you were involved in the Mon Cala civil war?"

"Hey, just 'cuz I can swim doesn't mean I like it." Ahsoka gave him a sheepish shrug. "Being underwater for long stretches of time messes with my hearing." She trailed a thumb over the web of healed cracks spread over her left montral. The hollow bone like ossicones give her and other Togruta a kind of passive echolocation, making her hearing sensitive. Water, air pressure and other factors can mess with her hearing and balance horribly, making it a kind of double edged sword.

"I was slapping and shaking my head like a dog for days after we left because I thought I still felt water pressing around my horns. That and it feels slimy and cold when it gets on your clothes." She pulled a face and stuck out a tongue. "Just… ick. No thank you."

Anakin snorted then gave her another considering look. One she recognized when he was contemplating telling her about his past. She ate up every morsel of information about his life and kept them close to her chest. It made her feel special and… wanted, knowing things that he hasn't told anyone else outside of perhaps Obi-Wan.

He seemed to have come to a decision because his handsome face softened and he carded a hand though the honey brown locks that framed his ethereal blue eyes.

"I hated getting sand in my hair as a kid." He admitted, his voice going soft almost as though he was afraid to poke at the memories he was sharing lest they bite back. Ahsoka felt an aching sorrow ripple through their Force bond and she had to blink back tears, tears that she wasn't entirely sure were her own.

Home, death, sun, dunes, love, hope, home, mother, hurt, pain, pain, blood, agony, too late, too late, I'm too LATE! So sorry, I'm so sorry-

Wrestling herself from the tide of emotions flooding her mind (This was Anakin muted behind ironclad mental shields and she shuddered to think of the maelstrom that lay on his side of the bond) she calmed her beating heart and relaxed, trying to bleed the residual hurt and pain out into the Force.

She must have flinched because Anakin realized that his emotions were leaking out from his mental shields and his defenses slammed shut, offering respite from the emotional onslaught.

This wasn't the first time something like this happened. In fact this was a very mild incident compared to a couple of times in the past. The flashes and snippets of feelings and images she gets are almost always the same, or at least similar. She is just too scared to ask. A large part of her almost doesn't want to know, but the rest of her wants to be there for him. to ease his pain and hurt, even just a little bit. Just like he had done for her.

They sat in silence as she recovered. She distracted herself with studying his hair and she found it wasn't that hard.

Glowing azure eyes roamed across the forest of massive trees to where the shore melded into the sun painted ocean. A ray of dappled sunlight lit up Anakin's form melting his light brunette hair into strands of gold - And scorching his skin black. Once tanned flesh charred and cracked, blood and puss bubbled and frothed, dribbling down his arms, chest, and face, staining his blue tunic, clone armor, and bleach white skull- and Ahsoka was conflicted on which view was more beautiful.

When did I find hair attractive of all things? It's like… skin spaghetti, right?

She was struck with the overwhelming urge to run her fingers through his light brunette locks and find out. She wondered if it was as soft as it looked.

She also wondered where she had left her brain, because she clearly lost her bloody mind for even considering fondling her friend (and a Jedi Master no less!) in broad daylight.

Ugh, hormones. Growing up sucks.

He noticed her unusually intense inspection and cocked an eyebrow. She felt heat darken her leeku and scorch her orange cheeks a dusty hazel but he didn't seem to notice her embarrassment for getting caught staring. She was just thankful he couldn't read the weird thoughts running through her head. That would have been mortifying.

However, in a rare display of self-consciousness he swallowed and ran his fingers through his hair, sweeping aside an adventurous strand of honey brown hair.

"Well, then I believe I may have discovered a solution." Anakin proclaimed, breaking the silence, unaware that he had just saved herself from her own stupid crush and him from a very awkward conversation about skin spaghetti.

"Oh?" She asked, stuffing her lusty daydreams and weird awkwardness in a mental box and throwing away the key, at least until she bunked down and spent the night cringing at herself. "And what is that?"

"If I need to get to the water then I can just hitch a ride on your back over the sand!"

Ahsoka rolled her eyes, the tension in her shoulders relaxing as he drew her back into their conversation. "And what about me and the water?" She asked playfully.

Anakin smiled and rested a hand on her shoulder and Ahsoka jumped from the giddy warmth that blossomed from his touch. She had to suppress a full-body shudder as the warmth spread to the rest of her, trickled through her veins and pooled into a molten mess just below her navel.

Unaware of the effect he had on the poor girl, Anakin answered in a low voice -hate spilling hot from his tongue- , " If you ever find yourself in over your head and drowning, just reach out and take my hand." He squeezed her shoulder affectionately. "I'll be there to pull you up. I'll even carry you from the water myself if I have to."

The heat in her belly apparently decided it would better make an appearance on her face and Ahsoka turned her head away so he couldn't see the way her cheeks colored from orange to deep red and the blue stripes on her leeku flush a deep purple. Once she got her (stupid, stupid, stupid!) blush under control and gathered her scattered wits she mulled his words over in her head and let out a scoff.

Brushing his hand from her shoulder (and only briefly mourning the loss of contact) she fixed him with a look of exasperated disbelief. "No. You're not doing that."

Anakin's eyebrows rose and disappeared behind his hair. "I'm not doing what?"

Crossing her arms and squaring her shoulders she deepened her voice in a mocking, passable imitation of him and said, "Turning your stupid "Beaches are weird." Statement into some kind of deep, meaningful lesson. Nah uh. You," She poked a finger into his armored chest. "are the weird one, Anakin Skywalker. And when we get to the beach I dare you to try and jump on my back." She added with a little growl and another finger poke.

"Awww, I love you too Snips." Anakin drawled, completely unconcerned with the predatory Togruta female baring her sharp teeth inches from his face.

He tilted his head and flashed her another lopsided grin. "You gotta work on your snarl though, tiger. 'cuz the only thing you're making me afraid of is my heart bursting from how cute that was. Like a tooka hissing at a cucumber- ow! Ow! Ow! Okay, okay! Quit hitting me! I'm threatened! I consider myself threatened!"

Ahsoka's ire was only mollified upon seeing the infuriating young man cowering, his arms raised above his head and pleading for mercy. She took pity on the silly male and crossed her arms with a huff, putting on an air of irritation.

It only lasted for a few seconds when she glanced over at his smug grin, azure eyes sparkling with laughter. Her façade crumbled and she mirrored his grin. He rested his hand on her back and she drank in the rare moment of affection, her unease for her past and her immediate future unraveling, for the moment at least.

"Love you Snips." Anakin murmured, though this time the words were spoken in a somber, reverent tone. One she had only heard from him when he was absolutely serious. He was the only person to ever say them to her. Not even Master Plo had ever uttered them. Love wasn't the Jedi way. It was an attachment. A risk. A direct path to the Dark Side. It was dangerous. It was wrong… and yet…

"I-I love you too Skyguy."

And yet she said them anyway. Because she did. Not in the same way he loved her but it was enough. She mattered to someone. Two someones really. Obi-Wan never said the words to her either but she heard Anakin tell Obi-Wan he loved the man on several occasions and she knew he cared deeply for her as much as his former apprentice, he just wasn't so vocal about it.

Serious moment or not she couldn't resist one last parting shot.

"You're still weird though."

"Why you-!"

Ahsoka descended into a fit of giggles as Anakin pounced on her, tickling her sides ruthlessly and for one beautiful moment her world stood still and she felt loved.

And it was enough.

"Eeeek! Hahaha! Stop! Stop!" Ahsoka squealed, the wooden hut floor cool against her back, tight body-glove clothed legs tangled with Anakin's long limbs, trapping them in a grappling lock on reflex. She savored the way his muscled limbs flexed and bowed above her, against her, as they playfully fought for dominance. His armored body dragged delightfully against her clothed skin as he struggled to free himself. Ahsoka's hands were planted on his broad chest, as she weakly pushed up against his weight as his fingers danced along her ticklish stomach, her lungs and cheeks aching, breathless from laughter.

She wiggled up beneath him until she was face-to-face with him, wrapped her legs around his middle and pulled her thighs taut, catching him off guard and squeezing the breath from his lungs. She looked up at his face, a cocky smirk blooming on her lips. her expression faltered, her own breath stolen.

She found herself staring up into a pair of glowing sky blue eyes, a deeper glittering sapphire then the ocean below. The smile on his face shadowed by the curtain of honey brown hair made golden by the sunlight trickling through.

Is this a dream?

Ahsoka swallowed thickly, and sucked down air, her breath still ragged from her laughter. A mistake that was, as his intoxicating scent was the only thing for her to breath in.

this… this is too good to be a dream.

"Ahsoka…." Anakin whispered, his breath rolled hot over her cheek, sparking an electric heat across her skin and setting her heart off on a rapid skipping rhythm against her ribs as his face strayed closer, lips scant inches from hers.

Her hands moved on their own. Her calloused palms trailed from their place on his chest over the crest of his muscled pecs, fingers tracing the junction where his neck meets his collarbone. She found herself enraptured by the way his pulse leapt from his throat against her palm as her hands slid up, up, up, up over his strong jaw and tickled across his cheeks until her hands came to rest, slender orange fingers cupping his face, her left thumb trailing the scar down his brow from his fight with Ventress on Naboo a year prior.

Please don't let this be a dream.

Her eyes fluttered closed almost on their own accord as she leaned in, to close the distance between them, her heartbeat ramping up pounding wildly in her montral.

A sudden stab of pain in her side broke the young togruta from this blissful, fantastic moment.

"Ow." Ahsoka sucked in a sharp breath, "Hey, you're holding on too tight." She husked against his jaw. She drew him closer again but the pain turned to a lance of agony crackling through her stomach and ripped a path up her spine.

Ahsoka's back arched against his chest, her hand snapped from Anakin's face to her stomach. her hand was met with gloved fingers as Anakin's thumb curled into her flank. She tried to pry his hand from her side but his fingers only clenched tighter. She could actually feel his wicked claws cut into her skin and dig into her flesh.

"Ow! Anakin, you're hurting me!"

Her last vestiges of happy contentment was replaced by raw animalistic terror as Anakin's claws curled deeper and deeper, crimson blood spilled from the ragged hole in her side and splatter across her legs, chest, arms, hand, and face as she screamed and thrashed in a blind panic.

Then the memories. Obi-Wan's stricken face when he told her the news, and the cold, dead Force Bond that hung cut and frayed from where she had severed it when she left the Jedi. The Siege of Mandalore. Order 66. Her years on the run, biting at the ankles of a twisted ugly image of the Republic-turned Empire she had fought and killed for.

Pain. Her memories crashed over her with a crushing, suffocating agony both physical and emotional so deep it left her drowning and tasting blood on her lips.

In a fit of desperation Ahsoka raked her nails across Anakin's face, his skin peeling away and shredding like old flimsi. She felt the ragged remnants of Anakin's face flaking away between her fingers, dry and rotten. She saw the cold metal skull sneering down at her with a mouth full of jagged steel knives and two Sith gold orbs burning in their empty sockets. Another horrified, hysterical scream ripped from her throat.

**"YOU DID THIS TO ME!"** The Nightmare roared, unrestrained fury and hate dragging their sharp blades across her flesh. Anakin's rotten breath came up a horrible mechanical rasp that ground the air and burned her nose.

"Please!" Ahsoka begged. The anger and hurt the bleed from her decaying friend tore her heart more than the fear she felt. Even if he was this monster, even if he was killing her Ahsoka had to make him understand.

"I had no choice! When Barriss framed me and after the-the trail I had t-to get away from the Order! I had to find my own way, without them. Without you!" Hot helpless tears blurred her vision and spilled down her cheeks. "B-but that didn't mean I didn't love you!"

** "YOU PUSHED ME AWAY!"**

"YOU DIED!" She screamed back, the sieve that sealed away her grief and guilt cracked open, her sadness and pain flaring into blind anger. "I always meant to come back but… But when I finally did you were already gone! "

At this point Ahsoka wasn't even thinking about what she was saying, the sieve now thrown open wide and all of her hate and self-loathing spewed from her mouth in a flood, much like the tears spilling from her eyes as she stared up at the monstrous image of the man above her. "You left me f-first! You kriffing died and left me all alone you selfish bastard!"

Cold metal claws curled around her face and slammed the back of her head against the bloodsoaked floor. Ashoka choked from the sudden pain. She nearly swallowed her tongue and her sharp teeth clacked together hard. Through the ringing in her montral she heard the Nightmare's terrible mechanical breathing.

**"Then, perhaps you would like to join me in the dark?"** The Nightmare cooed, voice deep and jagged like oil over sandpaper. The words slithered into her montral, curling around her brain like oily eels as they bit and chewed at her will.

Terror bleed anew in her heart as the thing that was once the man she loved tilted its metal skull and nashed its blade-like teeth in a devilish grin.

Scared as she knew what was going to happen next she would not give this perversion of a sweet memory what it wanted. If she did she felt like she would lose what little she had left of him if she did.

"No." She breathed in a tiny defiant and terrified whisper.

The Nightmare's skull contorted in rage and the coals of glowing gold flared hot with fury and for a moment she thought it would kill her then and there, but then the sith-light faded and it calmed itself. The Nightmare dug its claws around her face and peeled her head from the floor, her montral pried painfully from where they had dug into the splintered wood until their faces were scant inches apart.

**"Then…" **The Nightmare whispered in a sweet voice, its terrible rasping breaths scratching at her mind. **"You will be like me."**

Then with deliberate slowness he curled his claws further into the gaping hole in her stomach tearing an agony filled scream from her raw throat. The Nightmare opened his jaw, the rows of jagged knives glistening with blood and saliva inches form Ahsoka's face. The heaving, mechanical rasp of his booming voice scarring her heart with fear. She struggled and thrashed harder under Anakin's weight as his skull reared back and roared

**"THEN YOU WILL DIE." **

The Nightmare bared his teeth and lunged, jaws tearing into her face-

Ahsoka woke up.

Her back was sticky, her clothes soaked through and suctioned to her skin, the fluid thick, grainy and viscous. Just like blood.

She freaked.

Throwing herself to her feet Ahsoka's hands fumbled for her lightsabers, only for her fingers to snag and tangle with her blaster that for a moment felt foreign and wrong. Her breathing came up fast, panicked, and shallow as adrenaline poured through her veins, making the unfamiliar swamp that surrounded her blur and pulse in time with her slamming heart.

This was wrong, she realized. It's so dark. Why is it so dark? Is it night? Already? It was barely daybreak. Wait, this isn't wroshyr tree she had been leaning against. This wasn't Kashyyk. The air here was humid but there's no salt. Where's the beachhead? The clones? The 501st? where's Anakin-?

She gasped in pain, her hand flying from her holster to the bandaged hole in her side. When she looked up the world began to spin, and her knees were wet and mucky. When had she fallen? She had been standing last she checked. What's going on?

The swamp blurred and her spinning world tilted violently.

"Commander?!" She heard a voice- a clone she realized, she just couldn't nail down a name. She looked up and saw a dark blob separate from the black outline tree trunk beside her and stagger over. Who was he? She couldn't remember. Her brain wasn't working, her thoughts not cooperating. She thought she felt the clone-blob put his hand on her shoulder but the sensation felt miles away. The only sensation she felt sure of was her stomach punching her diaphragm.

"I- I don't feel so good." Her arm hooked the clone's and she doubled over on her remaining hand and knees and puked. She vaguely noted the vomit that splattered her arm upon impact. She tried to suck in a breath but her stomach threw another sucker-punch into her ribs and more of her half-digested Togruta-safe protein ration bars made their soggy reappearance. Tears followed unbidden to the acrid burn of acid up her throat while she could do nothing more but ride out her bout of nausea.

"S-stop. Stop, stop, please stop." She begged between every clench of her rebelling stomach. who she was talking to she didn't know but in her delirium she didn't really care.

She must have spent ten minutes puking her guts up, but finally her heaving abated. Somewhere about halfway through she had felt a hand patting her between her shoulder blades. She took all the comfort she could get from the touch and it helped ground her enough to find some state of equilibrium.

"You alright?" She heard the clone ask.

Ahsoka took a few more ragged breaths to assess herself and wipe the chunky spittle dribbling from her lips. Piecemeal jerked back in surprise when she shoved his arm away and started to wrestle her jacket and soaked shirt from her body as if they were strangling her. The wet sensation had become too much. All she felt was blood, blood, blood-!

She flung her jacket away but her shirt got hung up under her leeku, draping the slimy material over her face. A sound somewhere between a whimper and a growl escaped her throat and her motions became frantic and desperate. with a snarl she took the shirt and ripped the collar wide and pulled the shirt free, leaving her gray sports bra and the swath of filthy and bloody bandages around his middle. Her nostrils flared and her chest heaved as if she had just run a marathon, her ripped shirt crumpled in both fists in her lap.

Catching her breath she swallowed, winced a little at the burn in her throat and answered croaked, "Yeah." She trailed a hand down the throbbing wound on her stomach and sat up straight, her legs folded under her butt in a quasi-seiza as if she were still a Padawan Learner at meditation lessons.

"Yeah, I'm…" She burped and spat out a lingering piece of old food. "Better." Though she could only really see his outline she flashed a grateful smile over her shoulder. "Thanks Piecemeal."

After emptying her stomach she did feel better, or at the very least her mind clearer, even if she did still have a headache knocking against her skull. She thought back to the surreal confusion of forgetting where and when she was upon waking up and a tiny sliver of cruel panic poked her from the back of her mind, mocking her for her weakness.

She didn't want to admit it but she had been scared. The surreal sense of confusion she had felt from being ripped from her 17 year old body and thrown in a pitch black swamp 5 years later so abruptly really screwed her up. Her mind was still fighting to sort out what was real and what was not. Lucid nightmares were the worst, especially when she woke up somber without a single drop of booze within a hundred miles.

Piecemeal's weathered brown face pulled into a frown seeing the strong young woman so badly rattled. He sympathized. This war is taking its toll on them all. It broke his heart seeing this woman he had witnessed grow from a sassy twig of girl into a tempered warrior be brought so low. She had lost so much. Her Master (General Kenobi, not that prick Krell. No one missed that one), the Jedi Order, her troops, even the man he knew she had loved more than a brother and friend.

"What-" Ahsoka hacked and spat another chunk of food from her mouth, "-what time is it?"

Piecemeal quickly wiped his expression from his face. If he knew one thing it was his Commander hated to be pitied. He couldn't see very well through the gloom, but he saw Ahsoka's reflective eyes shine through the gloom. It was a reminder that Togruta are predators, she could see much better than him.

Noting that she was trying to change the subject from her bout of violent nausea he decided to drop it issue (for now) and checked the chrono on his wrist. "It's a bit before dawn I think. We've only been asleep for a couple hours."

Ahsoka still felt like crap, a deep throbbing ache radiated from her joints and her eyes felt weight down by the bags that hung below them like lead weights. nevertheless she nodded, checked her utility belt for all its bells and whistles and her blaster seated in her holster. She levered herself to her feet with a strained grunt, body protesting like a cranky babe woken from a nap and stubbornly ignoring the throbbing wound in her side when she twisted oddly straightening up. A wet wind rolled over her exposed skin and she shivered.

Ahsoka looked down at her torn shirt then instead chose to scoop up her discarded jacket and slip it over her undergarments instead. The jacket was only marginally less slimy but at the very least it wasn't plastered across her skin. Just thinking about the grainy sticky feeling similar to blood soaked clothes pressing around her body sent shivers down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

Tucking her shoulders and crossing her arms to ward off the chill and the uncomfortable hot flashes running down her stomach she said, "We should get moving."

She limped over to where she had tucked the stolen BARC speeder under a large gnarled tree root and started the vehicle. The repulsorlift engine ignited with a growl, drowning out the ambient howl and chirp of surrounding nocturnal wildlife. Keeping the illuminator off she coasted over and helped her one-legged companion on the speeder behind her and took off at a cautious pace, her eyes darting between the datamap built in between the handlebars and the dark swamp rolling past..

"How far to that settlement you found on that map?" Piecemeal asked against the back of her montral.

"A few dozen klicks south by southwest." Ahsoka answered over the whine of the engine after checking the distance. "These Scavver's home is closer and to the northwest so I think it best to go somewhere else for help."

"I hope these people at least have a long range comm terminal." Piecemeal muttered. "We need to call for pick-up and get these Star Destroyer plans to Rebel Command as soon as possible."

"Worst case we just steal a ship." Ahsoka shrugged. "I don't like the thought but with inquisitors on our asses it's not like we have the luxury of choice."

"You're right." She felt Piecemeal sigh heavily against her montral. "Wish we had a few of the 501st Shield-brothers with us about now. Even that hag Ventriss struggled against us back in the day."

"Isn't that how you lost your leg?" Ahsoka asked.

"Well, yeah, sure. But I did break her nose." Ahsoka could hear the smirk in Piecemeal's voice. "If I get my paws on another leg and an electro-baton I'll do the same to those inquisitors too."

"Hopefully without losing your other leg this time."

Piecemeal chuckled, then started laughing.

"What I said wasn't that funny." Ahsoka grossed, a little concerned for her friend's sense of humor.

"No, no. not that." Piecemeal cortled. "I'm just remembering the stupid look on that red-blade's face when you hit him with the speeder and skipped him like an angry stone!" He laughed.

Ahsoka snorted, grinning smugly. "That was pretty good, wasn't it?"

After putting some distance between their resting place Ahsoka switched the illuminator on and opened up the throttle, cutting a wave of murky water in their wake.

Dawn lit up the sky half an hour later, pink and green fire rising over the horizon to meet them. Bands of light spilled through between the spindly sea of decayed trees in rays of viridescent gold as wisps of mist rose from the murky water. The waking morning sparked a tiny cinder of nagging recognition in the back of Ahsoka's mind. This sky felt familiar for some reason, but the answer clung to the clouded fog of her memory, dancing just at the edge of recognition.

Ahsoka turned her head a little to speak over the rush of wind. "Piece?"

"Hm?"

"Does this place look… I dunno, familiar to you?"

"Commander, we've trudged through how many swamp planets during the war?" Piecemeal asked sardonically. "When you've seen one, you've seen them all."

"Hmph, true." Ahsoka relented, turning her eyes back to the landscape speeding by. Still, she was sure she had been to this planet before. The Datamap was no help, only containing whatever shorthand for the region or location the BARC's previous owner had punched in before she had "requisitioned" it. She glanced down at the blinking point on the map they were headed towards eloquently christened "Whores R herre!" and scowled.

Despite the distasteful label it was the closest location beside the coordinate point the previous owner named "home" and their best shot at finding a way off this mudball. Her wound throbbed and with it a hot flash that trickled and rolled through her body in a sickly boiling wave.

_Okay. Patch ourselves up first, then find a way home. _

"I think I see it." Piecemeal pointed past her shoulder to a swooping tower topped with what looked like a viewing platform stabbing out of the sea of trees and into the pastel morning sky at an odd angle.

"That doesn't look like a town or village to me." Ahsoka replied over the wind. She peeled to the right and slowed their speed in a more cautious approach. "It almost looks like the comm tower to a Providence."

She could feel Peicemeal's confused look and furrowed brow bouncing off the back of her blue striped montral. "What would an old Seppie warship be doing way out in the middle of nowhere on this skugg-hole?"

"Same reason we're here," Ahsoka answered as their speeder broke from the treeline. Though she knew from personal experience just how daunting an image it can invoke she was still caught off guard (and perhaps a little cowed) by the sheer size of the decayed CIS dreadnought carcass listing half submerged in the mire. "It wasn't on purpose."

The Providence-class Dreadnought was over a mile and a third long, (some 2,100 meters in length Ahsoka dimly recalled from her initial briefings as a Padawan years ago) however this particular specimen looked to have been spread over a good three or four square miles of the swamp. Large sections of the downed vessel were missing from the main body, ripped free upon planetary impact and stabbing from the acrid wetlands in a macabre rendition of a bug splatting against a windshield, guts spilled out and exoskeleton shattered.

Life, however, once again proved that it can be as stubborn as a Skywalker, literally building from the remains of the destroyed dreadnought. Pinpricks of light flickered from the titanic wreckage in the waking dawn, and from what Ahsoka could see a veritable city had pushed itself out from the inside of the downed dreadnought's main hull.

She was suddenly struck by an aching need to be surrounded by strong durasteel walls and somewhere with good booze (Hell, she'd settle for the local gut-rot at this point, just to stop the tremble in her hands).

Ahsoka, roused at the thought of alcohol, spotted what looked like the main gate into the settlement built in front of the Providence's starboard hanger door and quickly arced the speeder towards the flickering points of light on the hangar interior. She got a few hundred yards from the scavenged durasteel gates sunken into the mire when a gravelly voice called from the battlements.

"Halt! 'o be a-goin' dere? Whassyer bus'ness?"

Ahsoka drew the speeder to a halt and narrowed her eyes towards the top of the gate and spotted, of all things, a Gungan goggling down on her with eye stalks narrowed in suspicion. Dreadful suspicion of her own welled up like stomach acid but she pushed it aside.

"Just a couple travellers looking to trade!" She replied, trying to make herself as non-threatening as possible.

The Gungan scoffed. "An' whatcha doin' outta dere in da night? Don'cha knowin' 'bout the Lost thatin' be a-stalkin' da wastes?"

Lost? Thinking back Ahsoka did vaguely recall hearing one of the Scavvers say something about a lost… something or other. It seemed whatever this "lost" was it is something to be concerned about.

"I…" Ahsoka went to shrug and flinched when the motion pulled at her blaster wound. she settled for what she hoped was a convincing cock of her head, "I guess we just got lucky." With more effort than she would care to admit she smoothed her pained grimace and asked, "So. you gonna let us inside?"

The Gungan studied her appearance then glanced at Piecemeal peeking over her shoulder. The guard grunted and waved them in. "Openna dat gate."

Ahsoka tried and failed to muster a charming smile in the Gungan's direction and glided the BARC speeder through the rattling gate and into the hangar.

Ahsoka was impressed with what she saw once inside. What was left of the dreadnought interior was repurposed and converted into a sort of town square and marketplace. Stalls were packed wall to wall and stacked on top of each other in a ramshackle and precarious manner, some of them even reaching all the way to the ceiling in places. Despite the way many of the stalls and thrown together structures leaned and wobbled under the early morning foot traffic nothing fell over (yet). Still, Ahsoka was going to keep her feet firmly on the ground as much as possible.

Pulling into a speeder parking spot just inside the hangar Ahsoka swung her legs off the BARC but stopped Piecemeal from dismounting, pushing the amputee back into his seat with a hand on his shoulder.

"You can't walk without your metal leg." Ahsoka reminded him. Piecemeal didn't look put out being manhandled, though the way his brow furrowed told Ahsoka he didn't appreciate being told to stay and speeder-sit like a rambunctious child.

Ahsoka sighed and scrubbed her face with her palm wearily adding, "Look, I'll get patched up and try to find you a replacement. then we can hunt down a comm terminal or wherever they keep their ships in this trash pile, yeah?"

"Just make sure whatever peg-leg you grab for me has padding. stump chaffing is a scragging bitch." Piecemeal assented reluctantly, drew his blaster from his hip and placed it in his lap and added, "Stay safe in here. This place smells… off somehow."

Ahsoka looked over her shoulder and asked, "Off how?"

"I dunno, it's just I've never seen a settlement this size have this many armed guards," He gestured to the heavily guarded corridors leading to the aft and bow of the vessel. ",unless they had something to protect."

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. "Have you seen where we are? And with whatever these "lost" things they keep talking about out there I'd want a lot of guards too."

"Sure, sure. Then explain why the guards are facing the _inside _of the hangar?" The grizzled clone pushed, fingers curling and uncurling around his blaster anxiously.

"You're just being paranoid-" Ahsoka scoffed. Though, even as she said the words she gave the armed goons strutting the upper catwalk lining the hangar walls a second glance. One of them caught her gaze and glowered back.

She felt her anxiety and her blood pressure spike, and suddenly being surrounded by durasteel walls didn't make her feel so safe anymore, though the thought of a drink seemed even more attractive by the second. She really should have just stayed in bed on Corellia...

"-Hopefully."


	5. Chapter 5 Drink Me

Chapter 5: "Drink Me"

The further Ahsoka stalked into the ruined depths of this Providence dreadnought the more her unease intensified. She knew how she looked to these people; desperate. Ratty clothes slicked in caked mud, coagulated blood coloring the filthy layers of bandages around her stomach, shoulders stiff and a slight limp in her step. A wounded predator separated from her pack.

_Vulnerable._

_But even a wounded predator can bite back. _Ahsoka's lips twisted into a grim smile, orange fingers played along the safety lever on her holstered blaster as she passed by a pair of wasters looking her up a down from their place against the grubby durasteel wall.

In a twisted sort of way she hoped someone was stupid enough to try her right now. She had some negative emotions she'd like to express, and (this is the Anakin in her talking) the best way to bleed out negative emotions into the Force was through someone else's broken nose.

The leering pair of thugs didn't follow her unfortunately, nor did the sketchy circle of dreeko-addicts staring guppy eyed at any passerby with shaking bony fingers tracing the edges of rusty blades. One of the decrepit souls went to stand up but she was left disappointed when the cretin took one look at the toothy, shark-like grin on her face, and unfortunately thought better than to mess with her. With a sniff of disdain (and a crinkle of her nose from the stench of unwashed bodies) she limped away into the poorly lit corridor. Though as she pushed her way through the throng of scav's and wasters she noted with ever increasing concern the number of guards roaming the stalls.

The market street narrowed until she had to turn her body and shimmy around the settlement's denizens, keeping a grip on her blaster and an eye out for some kind of salvage trader among the confusing throng of vendors and screeching store-cryers. Her hackles went up several times when she felt fingers grab at her as she passed by, and her blaster went up with it on one occasion when a brute of a zabrak thought he could get handsy with her belt pockets. Her throbbing headache, stiff muscles, and painful wounds weren't doing much to help her foul mood either. The shaking in her fingers only got worse as did her thirst.

_How hard is it to find a blasted salvage trader in a literal city made out of wreckage?! _

Her question was answered when the corridor opened up somewhere near what was once the starboard battery magazine, where the ammunition for the broadside turbolasers were once kept. The firing ports were open and the guns that had once protruded out of them gone, now they only served as open doorways, streaks of muck trailing in from the outside with the murky morning sunlight filtering in, illuminating the interior in a haunting gloom.

Ahsoka's bitter mood lightened somewhat when she turned to her left and found bits and pieces of actuators, random blaster parts, droid torsos, limbs, armor plating, and (_Thank the Huntress!) _speeder parts hanging on display from hooks in the ceiling. She saw a few early morning customers trailing among the salvage but she didn't immediately see a trader, or for that matter any credits changing hands.

She was eventually approached by a sleazy neimoidian flanked by a large rodian and sneering trandoshan (or smiling, she could never tell with Trandoshans). Eager to sell off the speeder and find what she was looking for so she could be rid of this skugg-hole of a world she straightened her shoulders and eased her tight expression into something more amicable, though her fingers never did leave her blaster.

Her anxiety ramped up and her amicable smirk faded somewhat when the Neimoidian stuttered to a stop and traced the lines of her battered body with an almost hungry eye. Satisfied with what he saw in her his flat face pulled into a slimy grin and she fought the sudden and violent urge to kick that grin down his throat.

Welcome to Halvar's Refuge Scrap and Trade!" The Neimoidian declared, hands raised in a grand gesture. His two goons followed him, one behind each shoulder watching her every move with steely expressions. Ahsoka ignored them, for the most part. The Neimoidain leaned towards her in a friendly fashion and continued, " You don't look like you're from around here. We don't see you're kind around here often. What can this humble store-keeper help you with? Searching for something, or are you here to..." He paused and looked her battered appearance up and down again. "...trade?"

Ahsoka really wanted to kick this slime bag into the dreadnought's trash compactor but settled for a glower instead.

"Trade." She replied through clenched teeth. "I got a BARC speeder in the main hangar I'm wanting to off-load."

"Ah, you would be our early morning visitor!" He exclaimed in a sickly sweet voice.

Ahsoka's brows scrunched and her fingers tightened on her blaster. "What's it to you?"

"News travels fast in Halvar's Refuge." The Neimoidian waved a gray hand dismissively. "And it's not everyday we see a Togruta around these parts. Let alone such a…. charming specimen like yourself."

That just cut it. Ahsoka's lips peeled into a snarl and she advanced towards the suddenly concerned scarp trader. "Alright, squiggly eyes up here bud, or I'll scrape them out of your face with a rusty spoon."

The trader's muscled lackeys pushed forward, looming over the shorter Togruta.

Ahsoka was hardly impressed.

"Simmer down there boys. I'm not in the mood to pick scales out of the bottom of my boot-treads. I just want to trade in my speeder and I'll be on my way."

The Rodian and Trandoshan frowned and differed to their neimoidian boss, who was now a mite more cautious of his Togruta customer.

"A-Ahem. Of course. Well, lead the way so I can appraise the merchandise."

Ahsoka nodded her head sharply and stalked towards the hangar with a supreme feeling of satisfaction as the passerby who had witnessed two large enforcers back down from a small Togruta female.

The former Jedi eyed the Trandoshan frowning down at her from a few steps away with a sick little knot in her stomach. The last time she had been this close to one of the reptilian predators it and others of its kind had stalked her and her men across swamplands just like this one during the Second Siege of Naboo, and she was loath to deal with any more of their kind.

The trip was much faster going back, since the crowd made way for her and the Neimoidian trader flanked by his lackeys, and that was all fine and dandy by Ahsoka, however she was growing less pleased with attracting so much attention. Specifically from the guards watching them pass. She hadn't noticed this at first, but she counted a disproportionate amount of scowling Gungans and Trandoshans among the goons in scavenged patrol armor. She didn't know what that meant, and she didn't like it one bit.

Ahsoka breathed much easier when they emerged into the main hangar and she laid eyes on a still grumpy Piecemeal straddled on the speeder. His sun-wrinkled eyes locked on hers and his tense expression lacked in relief; though only slightly. The grizzled war veteran kept their new friends within view and his fingers never left his unholstered blaster in his lap.

"Friend of yours?" The scrap trader asked, eyeing the twitchy human frowning at them from the BARC speeder. He looked down at the clone's foot and frowned. "Where's the rest of him?"

"Dropped his leg in the swamp." Ahsoka answered curtly.

"How does one 'drop' their leg?"

"Very carefully. Like plucking a nostril hair." Ahsoka replied dryly, not even bothering to hide her eye roll.

"They here to take a look at the speeder?" Piecemeal asked, wearily glancing between the neimoidian and his muscle-bound entourage.

"Yeah. start her up real quick?" Piecemeal stared at the scrap trader for a moment longer then bobbed his head and holstered his blaster. Sliding his missing leg back over the seat the clone thumbed the ignition. For a moment the engine sputtered in protest but thankfully turned over with a spooling growl. The clone looked over his shoulder and threw a thumbs up.

Ahsoka turned and gestured towards the speeder. "Side mounted blasters and nose cannons work, as does the data computer and navigation. Landing skids still extend and retract. Stabilizers are in good working condition and repulsorlift is smooth, even over rough terrain. BARC's are hard to kill after all."

The Neimoidian circled the vehicle, appraising it- and its owners. He pointed to the speeder's nose. "Where did you get this dent from?"

_From side-swiping a Sith Inqisitor's face at 50 klicks an hour._

"Oh, that was there when I acquired it."

The Neimoidian hmm'ed and haw'ed for a few moments deliberating with himself. "Well, with its worn and _clearly _abused condition I'm afraid it's not worth much…"

Ahsoka was honestly surprised no one else could hear her teeth grind together. She very much wanted to give in to a more… aggressive style of negotiation but even through the unpleasant haze of painfully sore muscles, mounting headache, and an itchy blaster wound she knew it would only serve to dig her in deeper trouble. Instead she ground out, "Six hundred credits."

It was a reasonable price she thought, a steal really. Even taking into account the BARC's beaten frame it should be worth at least one grand easy, so the blank look of confusion on the Nemoidian's fish-like face only served to confuse her more (and ramp up that intangible _wrongness _that infested this whole planet, mud and people all.)

The trader quickly wiped the confusion off his face, once again replacing it with his salesman smile. Ahsoka could feel the slime ooze from his grin. "Where did you say you were from Miss?"

Ahsoka felt her shoulders stiffen on reflex, and she cursed herself when she saw the Trandoshan and Rodian notice too.

"I didn't." She replied coolly.

The Neimoidian hummed, looking her up and down, clearly seeing her from a different angle this time, less a customer and more of an… opportunity.

"We… don't take credits here I'm afraid." He sighed regretfully. His bad act at empathy irked her in the same way being treated like a child during the Clone Wars had yanked her lek.

"However, I'm sure we can come to some sort of arrangement." He leaned in, conspiratorial and upbeat, like a friend tilting closer to clue her in a good joke or juicy nibble of gossip. "...Perhaps I can even assist in locating whatever you are looking for?"

She didn't want to deal with this sleemo. She really, really, _really, _didn't want to deal with this sleemo… but she needed his help. She hated how her beaten and filthy appearance made her look desperate, vulnerable.

As it turns out though, her appearance didn't lie this time. As much as it infuriated her she _was _desperate, and there is no telling if she could find another trader on this ship. Despite the way his sleazy grin sent shivers down her spine he did seem well off in comparison to the other denizens of this wasted city. He must have connections. And she was desperate.

She hoped she wouldn't come to regret this.

"Transport off-world." She answered, voice unyielding and serious. "Safe passage for both of us to the nearest starport."

The Neimodian's expression never faltered for a moment, not even a flicker of change from his sleazy knowing grin. "I'm afraid passage off-world is worth quite a bit more than what you are trading."

Ahsoka glared, meeting his unsettling squiggly eyes. He didn't say anything more, leaving her offer hanging. Ahsoka fought to keep the feline growl building in the back of her throat. "Fine." She bit out. "A message then. Ten minutes on a private long range comm terminal."

"Hm, I'm afraid Communication Terminals are few and far between out in the wastes." The trader straightened up, shooting the Rodian a look. Ahsoka couldn't read what that look meant but the green scaled humanoid apparently understood, turning and making his way towards the aft of the ship, the opposite direction the trader's shop was. Her fingers tightened on her blaster. _Welp, that tears it. Time to leave._

"We 're done here-"

"Wait, wait." The Neimoidian halted her, waving his arms, saying, "I may not have one, but my benefactor does. I can simply arrange a meeting, an opportunity if you will."

Ahsoka didn't like this. Not one bit. It seems her 'simple' escape plan was quickly spinning out of her control. "...Is that where your friend is going?"

"That's right, It does not speak well to just interrupt the boss. He is a busy man after all." The trader chuckled at himself, though it came out more like the sound a tooka makes when it's drowning.

Ahsoka eyed the trader, her lips pulled into a thin line. She shared a look of her own with Piecemeal, the clone clearly as enthused with the current situation sliding through their fingertips as she was.

She gave a miniscule tilt of her head, _stay or run? _

The clone thought for a moment then bobbed his shoulder in a tiny shrug, _we're kinda screwed either way. Your call, Commander. _

Ahsoka frowned, a little irked that even when having a silent conversation she could still hear Piecemeal calling her by her old rank. spotting the tiny curl of a near imperceptible grin on the clone's face, she suspected Piecemeal knew exactly what was going through her head. _Ass._

The exchange did serve to ease the edges of her biting tension, her stiff shoulders relaxing marginally.

The Rodian didn't keep them waiting for long, emerging from the quickly growing crowd milling through the hangar interior with a smaller man in tow. When the Rodian stepped aside to let the man join their discussion Ahsoka's breath caught in her throat.

He was human, lightly bronzed skin with light brown hair that cascaded down to his broad shoulders, framing a handsome clean shaven face and a pair of startling blue eyes. He was very handsome, and to Ahsoka the stranger bore a striking resemblance to…

_Anakin. _

Ahsoka swallowed and choked the name back down her throat. Yes, this man was human and had brown hair. Yes he had blue eyes and a handsome face, with a strong jaw and high cheekbones, but when she looked closer the differences quickly became apparent.

His hair was straighter and darker than Anakin's, and even though this man and her old friend both shared blue eyes, Anakin's were deeper, mesmerizing and sparkling like staring into a far off blue hued star in a clear night sky. This man's jaw was squared, where Anakin's was sloped and angular; and though his face was handsome, this man lacked the scar across his right brow that had marked Anakin's rugged features as a seasoned warrior (she wouldn't admit it, but it appealed to her more... _base_ instincts as a female member of a predatorial race).

This man, no matter how similar he is to her old crush, this man was definitely not Anakin… _though, if I squint enough… No. No, stop that. _

Shaking away those old memories clinging to the fringes of her thoughts, Ahsoka straightened her aching shoulders and squared her jaw facing down the Skywalker-imposter.

The man glanced at Piecemeal and the BARC, but when he turned his eyes towards the Togruta his Rodian Guard warned him about what he saw gave him pause. His eyes trailed over the weary and beaten woman, standing proud and strong despite her obvious pain. A smile brightened his face and Ahsoka swallowed around a thick knot of lead.

The Handsome Anakin-lookalike turned to the Neimoidian, "Nalvar, your guard failed to mention how enchanting our surprise guest was."

The Neimoidian's fish-like face quirked into a half-grin. "Of course, sir. Apologies."

Ahsoka wasn't sure what to make of the indirect complement, given that it was someone else other than some slimy scrap trader or thug.

"Hm," The stranger returned his blue eyes back to her and Piecemeal and introduced himself, "Well met Miss, I'm the… Well I suppose you could say the Boss around here." The man glanced at the BARC speeder then back to her. "My man Nalvar here tells me that you are in need of our long-range comm terminal. Correct?"

Ahsoka liked dealing with this man better… looks aside of course. (_No, really._ She told herself, _His charm and resemblance to you-know-who has nothing to do with it._) he gave off a much more earnest impression. One much more her speed.

"That's right." Ahsoka cautiously unwrapped her fingers from her blaster and shook the hand he offered. Faint tingles of lust shivered up her arm and she stamped down on the filthy emotion. This man wasn't Anakin. _But, if I squint enough… _

She cut off that trail of thought hard and released the boss's hand. His smile widened as he gestured to the BARC. "Well met Miss…?"

"Ashla." Ahsoka lied easily, using a common Shillian name she was rather fond of.

"Well Ashla, Shall we take this discussion to a more private venue?" The man asked. He looked at Piecemeal. "Your companion should join us as well." He turned to the Rodian. "Get our guest a crutch."

"I'd appreciate that." Piecemeal spoke up, gesturing to his missing limb.

The Rodian gave his boss a small nod and walked away to complete his task. He returned a moment later with a hollow metal strut repurposed into a crutch. Piecemeal took the tool and settled it under his armpit easily enough.

"Nalvar, you may go." The man dismissed the Neimoidian.

"Of course, Chief." The scrap trader gave the man an overexaggerated bow that, to Ahsoka, looked more like a fowl pecking a morsel from between its feet before he strutted off with the Rodian in tow. Ahsoka noticed the Trandoshan stayed behind, a step back and to the left of his employer. He never took his eyes off of hers, reptilian slits burning trails across her bright striped montrals and lekku.

"Follow. We can speak in my private conference room." The Anakin-look alike said, leading them away towards what she recalled from her days in the Clone Wars to be the Providence's secondary command deck near the center of the downed vessel.

It was a long walk, with the Mag-lifts inoperable. Nothing but cramped staircases and sketchy walkways carved through the bulkhead. Ahsoka did her best to keep track of the route in the case that they would have to make a quick exit but ten minutes in she found herself hopelessly lost.

Part of that was her pain and exhaustion distracting her, the other was the Trandoshan making hungry crocodile eyes at her from behind the entire time.

"Is he making you uncomfortable?" Ahsoka jumped at the sudden question, and nearly took a tumble down the stairs before catching her balance and turning her eyes from the staring Trandoshan to the front. The Chief was looking down at her with a smirk on his face.

"What?" She asked.

"My employee?" The man repeated. "Is he making you uncomfortable?"

Ahsoka scoffed. "This long maze you call a staircase is making me uncomfortable."

The Chief chuckled at that, "Well most of the ship cracked into pieces so patch jobs are our only option." He led them over a gap between two smashed sections of hallway, bridged by a rusted durasteel plate that creaked in protest as they stepped across.

"Thankfully though, we have arrived." He announced, coming to a stop before sealed blast doors at the end of the hallway. Hitting a button the doors shuddered in complaint as they slid languishly open, their motors worn and in dire need of servicing they probably won't get.

Ahsoka and Piecemeal followed the Chief into the conference room dominated by a wide table bolted to the floor at its center, with a command console, strategic holo-display set into the back of the room. At the far end of the room was another sealed door that if Ahsoka had to guess leads to their goal, a Comm Terminal.

The Chief took a seat on one end of the long table and Ahsoka and Piecemeal gratefully fell into their empty chairs opposite him. The Trandoshan bodyguard took up his position behind his employer, continuing to eye the both of them. Ahsoka's anxiety spiked when a female and male human walked into the room, dressed in matching gray servant garbs.

Ahsoka wanted to get these talks over with as soon as possible, eager to get away… that is until the Chief said the magic words.

"Drinks?"

"Yes!" Ahsoka's body had jerked awake all on its own just at the prospect of sating the vicious edge of her thirst.

When she saw the weird expression Piecemeal was giving her over outburst she sank back down, tempering her enthusiasm and cursing herself for her slip-up. "I mean, yes I wouldn't mind."

Piecemeal eyed her for a moment longer before shaking his head.

"Very well." The Chief waved a servant over and retrieved a glass decanter from their tray and poured a measure into two cups. The swill was strong. The aroma of alcohol burned at her nose even from across the table. Against her wishes felt her heart start to pound at the smell, her mouth gone dry as an arid desert.

He slid her drink over and Ahsoka was both simultaneously shocked and ashamed at how much effort it took to temper her excitement as she lifted the cup to her lips and took her first sip.

The liquid burned the moment it spilled over there tongue and rolled a trail of fire down her throat, and euphoria and warmth spread down her arms and her tired legs tingled. She drained the cup dry and set it down with a slow satisfied sigh. Her body relaxed as the alcohol spilled through her system, easing her shakes and numbing her pain.

The Chief had been watching her while she drank, blue eyes not missing a thing over the rim of his own cup as he sipped at a much slower pace than his newest customer.

"Another?" He asked.

Ahsoka hesitated a bit longer than she probably should have, doing her best to mask the confliction warring across her thoughts as she stared down at her empty cup. Her thirst won out. She held out her cup to the servant. "Please."

The servant took the cup and she turned to begin the meeting.

A loud crash of smashing china and before her mind registered it Ahsoka's blaster was already drawn and leveled at the Trandoshan and his boss, both who were regarding the weapon trained on them with a calm disregard. She shot Piecemeal a glance and saw he had drawn his blaster as well, only his was aimed behind her back at the servants, one of which was scrambling to clean up the shattered remains of the cup she had dropped.

"Clumsy girl." The Chief purred. The Servant flinched at his soothing tone, eyes down and dedicated to her task, never daring to look up at her employer. "Clean this mess up, then leave."

"Yes Milord." She whispered meekly, setting the tray on the table and picking up the cup shards scattered on the ground.

Ahsoka holstered her blaster sheepishly then went to get up and help the girl when the Chief stopped her.

"Let her work, my dear." He said kindly, "Sit, and I'll get your drink instead."

Ahsoka hesitated, looking between the servant girl and her boss. Ultimately she reluctantly sank back to her seat. The Chief nodded in approval and got up, going to the side wall and perusing a selection of glasses before choosing one on the end of the table and returning to his seat. He uncapped the decanter, refilled her drink, and slid it back to her.

Ahsoka accepted the drink but this time she took a sniff of the concoction first. Not smelling anything out of the ordinary, besides strong spirits, she took a swing, savoring the way the drink seared down her throat this time instead of inhaling it. She didn't know exactly what it was, the drink tasted like bad repulsor engine oil and kicked like a Tauntaun with the god-awful smell to match. If she had whiskers they would have curled, but instead her leeku spasmed in displeasure weakly slapping her sides in protest at the horrid concoction.

The bone-deep throb of thirst drowned out her body's rejection and she took another swig.

"Are your needs sated?" The Chief asked, amusement pulled his lips into a confident smirk. Ahoska found it a little aggravating rather than charming.

Coughing once she set the cup down with a smack her lips. Her previously sour mood lifted somewhat as her headache subsided. In fact, everything felt numbed, like static buzzing through her skin.

She shook her wrist of the odd sensation and leveled a considering eye towards the Chief as the servant boy leaned forward and refilled her cup.

"Let us speak more before we get down to business, yes?" The Chief prompted before she could get the conversation moving. At her disgruntled expression he leaned forward in his seat beseechingly, "Oh come now, you wouldn't deprive your gracious host of a little conversation in exchange for a little drink? It is so very rare to speak with travelers out here in the wastes…"

Truth be told, Ahsoka could care less about being polite seeing how she would never see this slimeball of a planet, or those that inhabit it again once she does call for help. However, there is no telling how long they will be forced to wait for pick-up. Could be a few hours, or a few weeks. Emperor's mossy armpits, she didn't even know where _here _is!

"Fine." Ahsoka sighed, leaning back in her chair. The Chief beamed at that, pleased at her reluctant agreement.

"Wonderful! Now, forgive my curiosity, but where are you two coming from?"

"I take it you don't get many outsiders out here?" Ahsoka inquired.

"On the contrary," The Chief corrected, "many wasters wander in here on the daily." He gave a pause, then spoke, his voice laden with intent. "Off-worlders, on the other hand…"

The Chief and his reptilian guard didn't so much as flinch when their guests' hands went for their blasters. The Chief wore an air of casual indifference, crossing one leg over his knee and sipping from his drink.

"What…" Ahsoka slowly uncurled her fingers from her weapon. "What makes you think that we are off-worlders?"

The Chief and his trandoshan guard both chuckled, as if in on a joke Ahsoka wasn't privy to. He swallowed his sip and set his cup down with deliberate slowness, then asked, "Tell me my dear, what planet are we on?"

"...Look, all we need is to use the-"

"Well?"

Ahsoka felt tension twist the air like a winding rope, a noose tightening around their necks with every passing second. She knew they had been trapped.

"The price to use the Comm Terminal has already been discussed-"

"But not with me." The Chief cut in, his smirk never leaving his face, even as Ahsoka's lips turned into a deep frown. "Oh now do not give me that look, my dear." He admonished, as if speaking to a child. "In fact, I will allow you to use the terminal after this, Once we discuss the price and value of course."

Pleasant surprise churned with the funny numbness the strong drink brought. Drawing on her rusty meditation skills from her Jedi training she pushed the feeling aside to sift through the frankly suspicious windfall.

She cast a skeptical eye. "Then what price are you talking about?" She coughed again, the words nearly slurred as they scraped from her suddenly dry mouth. _Was that drink stronger than I thought? _

The Chief's blue eyes lit in delight as his smile broadened.

"Yours."

Ahsoka blinked in confusion. Then panic gripped her heart as it leapt up her throat and she was up and out of her chair, blaster cleared from its holster-

-Then the world spun and she found herself on her knees trembling like a newborn lamb, her blaster still skittering across the floor from slipping from her nerveless fingers. She felt shouting around her, but it was a garbled mess, drowned out by a screeching ringing in her montrals.

She made out Piecemeal as he tried to stand, then he was launched back into his seat, the chair and the clone tumbling to the floor in a tangled mess. The gunshot punching through her hearing like a pike.

Ahsoka tried to scream, but her throat ran dry. She clawed at her throat and breast, her chest flared as if her insides were on fire. Her eyes widened as she realized far, far too late-

_Poison. _

A hand grasped her left lek and she was dragged off her her feet, agony shooting up her montral and down her spine, adding to the already excruciating pain she was in. She let out another tortured, soundless scream. The trandoshan guard's lizard grin cleared through her muddled vision and she felt like she was sixteen all over again, fleeing these reptilian monsters through the swamps of Naboo all over again.

"Now, Now, Xil'brex, do be more gentle. After all, we wouldn't want to further damage our prize." Anger flared through her foggy mid at the Anakin-imposter's haughty tone. With a monumental effort she grabbed the scaly arm holding her aloft and lashed out with her foot, and with a supreme sense of vindication felt her heel connect with a solid thump and a satisfying grunt from the human.

"Oh, my dear. You will regret that…"

Her satisfaction was short-lived when a rock-hard fist slammed into the side of her head and she hit the floor hard with a strangled gasp. Smaller hands clamped around her throat and dragged her within a hair's breadth of the Chief's grinning face.

"Now, I just realized that I never did properly introduce myself, did I, my dear?" His fingers tightened around her throat and her vision swam dangerously, the ringing in her montral worsening as he continued. "Here, I'm known as the Boss-"

"But you can call me _Jordo._"

A/N: Untraveled here!

Finally, _finally, _Chapter 5 is complete! I don't know why this chapter took so long for me to write, but I hope you will enjoy this continuation of "What Could Have Been" as much as I have writing it!

I found that I loved exploring a darker, grittier Ahsoka and her struggles Post-Clone Wars. Drugs, alcohol, and sex are common (and unhealthy) ways of coping with the horrors of war among veterans in real-life, and I always imagine Ahsoka and other survivors would struggle with these things to numb their pain and haunting memories.

What do you think about this version of Ahsoka and her struggles?

Tell me! Comment below!

**Shout-outs:**

Shout-out to _WingsTakeMeAway _from AO3 on beta-reading this piece and all of your suggestions and support. Your positive attitude and energy made writing this piece worth it! You're awesome, thank you!


End file.
